


Chaos Doesn't Take a Holiday

by YZYdragon2222



Series: Let's Celebrate Our Descent into Heaven [1]
Category: South Park
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Call Girl, Christmas, Coon & Friends, Doctor Timothy - Freeform, Dubious Morality, Fastpass - Freeform, M/M, Mosquito - Freeform, Super Craig - Freeform, Superheroes, The Coon - Freeform, VERY LATE gift fic, Wonder Tweek - Freeform, general disarray - Freeform, mysterion - Freeform, professor chaos - Freeform, superhero au, toolshed - Freeform, tupperware
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:08:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 46,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22733062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YZYdragon2222/pseuds/YZYdragon2222
Summary: Christmas is a time for miracles.  Too bad The Coon hates Christmas with every goddamn fragment of his soul.  But even if he didn't, he wouldn't believe in miracles either, because he is the awesomest, manliest superhero ever—not a lame-ass faggot.However, it's kind of hard to explain how else his Christmas went from finding Mysterion's burning corpse in the snow, to finding a naked Professor Chaos on his couch.Sparks will fly, mostly because they're coming from the flaming fists of the most dangerous lightning-wielding motherfucker in town.  It certainly makes for a eventful holiday season.
Relationships: Eric Cartman/Leopold "Butters" Stotch, Liane Cartman/Roger Donovan (mentioned), The Coon/Professor Chaos
Series: Let's Celebrate Our Descent into Heaven [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1634644
Comments: 9
Kudos: 31





	Chaos Doesn't Take a Holiday

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pepsicola](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pepsicola/gifts).



> VERY IMPORTANT AUTHOR'S NOTE!
> 
> You may be wondering what the hell I'm doing posting a fucking CHRISTMAS FIC on fucking VALENTINE'S DAY. Let me assure you, it's not because I'm the most pathetic human in the history of the universe. I mean, yes, I _am_ , but that's not reason.
> 
> This fic WAS actually supposed to be posted on Christmas Day, but I couldn't manage to finish it in time. Then I resolved to post it before New Year's Day, but _that_ also rolled around and I still wasn't done. Then I decided I'd have it up in the early days of January, but school started again and y'all know what that's like. By this time, a one-shot that was supposed to be 10,000 words tops had turned into a 40,000 word first part of what I've now decided is going to be a rather complicated series. So I decided, how about I post this fic together with Part 2, which takes place around Valentine's Day? This was all well and good, but then I couldn't manage to finish the Valentine's Day part of the fic. Which brings us to the present, in which I decided: FUCK IT! I'll just post the Christmas part today and hope that the intense romance stuff makes up for the severe out-datedness. Besides, Christmas isn't a season, it's a feeling...............or so the stupid quote goes. Someone wrote it on the wall outside my dorm, so blame that person for giving me the perfect excuse. 
> 
> So, anyway, I owe my bestest AO3 buddy pepsicola an apology as massive as this fic has turned out to be! I'm sorry I'm so so so so so so so late! It's...uh...the thought that...counts? God, I sound pathetic both out loud AND in writing. 
> 
> Honestly, pepsicola, it is ALL your fault! You stoked my ego way too much and I ended up forgetting how to shut up! LOL. But I love you, so I still hope there's at least some parts of this piece of trash you still manage to find enjoyable, even though it's been almost two months since Christmas.
> 
> It's mind-boggling to me that this thing ended up even longer than GOATRS is as at the moment. I wanted to explore a nontraditional angle for a Christmas fic and ended up giving a very messy birth to this abomination of an AU. 
> 
> I want to post the Valentine's Day Part 2 sometime this week, but knowing me, I might now finish it till fucking 4th of July................sorry pepsicola, severe procrastination comes with being my friend. 
> 
> More Author's Notes at the end because I really need to shut up and let y'all read now!

Half of Coon & Friends’ members aren’t even present at the meeting, and those who are clearly wish they were elsewhere. It’s not because many of the heroes within the group despise each other, because they most certainly _do_ —Call Girl has a long-standing passive-aggressive love-hate feud with Toolshed and Human Kite, Mysterion has zero patience for Mosquito, Super Craig loathes all of them except Wonder Tweek, and all of them collectively hate the Coon—

But no, that’s not the reason for the dreadful air of reluctance hanging over the heroes’ heads. Despite their mutual dislike, Coon & Friends have a knack for working together and getting shit done. They’ve far outlasted any other powered person—or group—calling themselves heroes in South Park, and despite numerous internal hardships over the years, to the public Coon & Friends have grown so well-respected that they’ve received unofficial endorsement from local law enforcement. 

No, no. The real reason for the general grumpiness among the heroes is because Christmas is only five days away, and, the Coon thinks with a sneer, these lazy lumps of crap he calls his allies couldn’t be half-assed to remove themselves from the comfort of their hearty fireplaces and worthless families to attend to their duties as warriors of justice...! 

...Not that the Coon very much feels like being here at the moment, either—not because he was making preparations for Christmas, though! Christmas is lame, and the Coon isn’t a lame-ass faggot. But if he _had_ to be interrupted from his bucketful of KFC, ice cream, and Terrance and Phillip reruns, he’d rather it be for the purpose of some serious criminal asskicking, not Call Girl’s summons for a boring meeting like this one. 

But—sacrifices, _sacrifices_. He’ll make them because he’s a good and heroic and totally-awesome hero. Unlike Wonder Tweek, Super Craig, Dr. Timothy, and the Human Kite, all of whom had cited “family obligations” as reason not to show up. 

Chaos doesn’t take a holiday, after all.

Wait, did he just think _Chaos_ ? The Coon meant Crime. _Crime_ doesn’t take a holiday—he hadn’t really been thinking of Professor _Chaos_ —well, maybe a little, but only subconsciously, and it was just a mental Freudian slip, since Chaos and Crime are basically synonymous in this city—

As it happens, the Coon needn’t have mentally freaked out: Chaos _is_ the reason he’s been unwillingly dragged from his mundane normal life to this equally mundane superhero meeting today. Call Girl—the pushy bitch—presides over the current congregation, waving a newspaper in their faces. It prominently displays the same headline that’s dominated South Park’s press and media all morning:

**South Park Christmas Tree Burns Down: 1 Dead, 2 Injured**

The South Park Christmas Tree was an extravagant thing that stood in the center of the city and looked like it belonged more in a place like New York City rather than some backwater Colorado town, which was precisely why the citizens of South Park had thrown in their money to have it erected. If there’s anything South Parkers are fond of, it’s of being unnecessarily excessive and having things they don’t need (and most definitely don’t deserve). The Tree was so tall that the shining star that glittered atop it could be seen from almost any point within South Park.

And now the tree is gone.

“When did this happen?” Mysterion growls in his stupid gravelly voice.

“At around 3am last night,” Tupperware supplies grimly. “Mosquito and I were a few blocks away, patrolling—and then we smelled smoke. By the time we got there, the whole thing was past the point of stamping out. And as neither of us are equipped with powers to deal with something like that, we had no choice but to call the fire department.”

“Are either of you hurt?” Call Girl asks. 

“My lungs still hurt from all the smoke I inhaled—“ Mosquito begins to whine.

“—But otherwise, we’re fine,” Tupperware finishes with a watery smile while patting Mosquito’s arm comfortingly. “Don’t worry about us, Call Girl.”

“This doesn’t reflect well on our public image,” Call Girl laments. “The past few months were so uneventful that we got complacent. I knew disaster would return to us at some point, but I didn’t think it’d be so bad as to crush the town’s Christmas spirit.”

The Coon snorts loudly. As always, Call Girl sounds just like a politician. She should run for mayor, he thinks: she’d be a good shitty leader of a shitty city like South Park. But of course, she doesn’t have the balls to actually run for office, not after what happened to McDaniels.

Call Girl’s looks up sharply and twists her face into something unpleasant. “Do you have a problem with me, rodent-boy?”

“Ay, I’m a raccoon, not a fucking rat, get your fucking facts straight, woman!” the Coon huffs. “And yeah, I do have a problem with you—my problem is that you seem to care more about your reputation than, oh, let’s say, the damage caused by the fire or the one fucking dead person?”

“You’re one to talk about only caring about _reputation_ !” she cries. “And of course, I _do_ care about those things, but I’m also thinking in the long term because our shoddy little operation collapses if we don’t have the public’s trust—“

“ _Don’t_ call Coon & Friends a shoddy operation—“

“ _Oh_ , so _now_ you care, now that your name is attached to it! But as I was saying, before you interrupted me, _rodent_ —it may just be a stupid holiday to your fat sacreligious ass, but Christmas is _important_ to the people here. It’s the one of time of the year they let themselves feel hopeful. If they don’t have that…”

“Yeah, fatass,” Toolshed jumps in, evidently in one of his kiss-Call-Girl’s-ass moods, “don’t complain unless you wanna be the one who explains this shitshow to the Stotches.”

The Stotches are an eccentric couple who are currently Coon & Friends’ largest private sponsors. They didn’t always hold that title: the Coon, who grew up on the same street as the Stotches, remembers when they were actually the number one opponents of vigilantism in South Park. However, they took a dramatic one-eighty after they gained national attention for the disappearance of their teenage son under mysterious circumstances. Since then, they’ve grown financially _comfortable_ , to say the least, off media attention and pity money, and have thrown their wealth at philanthropic efforts—including superheroism. 

The Coon could normally care less about sketchy, rich white families who may or may not have murdered their own children, but something has always bothered him about the Stotches. He takes their money because money is money: The Coon wouldn’t turn down cold hard cash if it came from ISIS itself. But the Coon remembers the disdainful looks the straight-backed, brown-haired man and his thin blonde wife would give him as a child, because he was nothing more than the bastard kid of the town slut. 

Imagine the Coon’s surprise, then, when their son had come knocking on his door one day when they were still very young. The Coon didn’t go to the same school as little Stotch, who’d been sent to private school by his parents—but the Coon had thought the boy looked his age. Little Stotch had as much innocence in his eyes as his parents had prejudice, and in a shy voice the boy had asked a stunned Coon if they could play together. 

The Coon had sneered down at the kid and was about to tell him to go fuck himself, but before he could, Stephen Stotch had suddenly appeared seemingly out of nowhere, thunder in his step and fury in his eyes. Without a word, he’d taken little Stotch by the ear and dragged him away.

The Coon had watched as little Stotch’s blue eyes filled with tears. 

The Coon had thought little of the incident until news came out that little Stotch and his big blue eyes had vanished without a trace. And the Coon had felt a little lurch in his stomach. He couldn’t understand it. He’d never gotten to know little Stotch, after all, and even if Stephen Stotch hadn’t interrupted that day on his front step, the Coon would only have told Little Stotch to fuck right the fuck off, and that would’ve been the end of it—but somehow, the boy’s disappearance felt _personal_ . Like the Coon _should_ have gotten to know him, but had been cheated out of the opportunity by Fate.

...Not that the Coon believes in lame things like Fate. He’s not a lame-ass faggot.

“Whatever,” the Coon grumbles at Toolshed, because he _really_ does not want to get roped into meeting with little Stotch’s parents. 

As the rest of the heroes resume their discussion about the Christmas Tree Calamity, the Coon quietly fumes. He _hates_ the rest of Coon & Friends. _He’s_ the founder of their group, _he’s_ supposed to be the leader—and yet they give him no respect, think it’s okay to push him around. If the Coon is being honest, being a superhero has long ago lost its novelty—South Park is a town full of ungrateful jerks unworthy of saving, anyway—but he can’t call it quits. Not after the other heroes tried to kick him out of the group that one time. No way—they could chop his arms and legs and off and he still wouldn’t leave. Not now that he still has to prove to them that he’s their superior.

He slowly tunes back into the conversation just as Mosquito is saying, “...some homeless guy, he was sleeping _inside_ the tree, probably trying to keep warm or some shit, when the fire started.”

“The irony is r-r-ruh-real,” Fastpass comments.

“There wasn’t anyone else in the area—the 2 injured were firefighters,” Tupperware finishes.

“What’s this about a homeless guy?” the Coon interjects.

“That’s the one guy who was killed,” Mysterion supplies seriously. The Coon is secretly thankful that Mysterion doesn’t call him out for not paying attention. Mysterion is the most tolerable hero of the group, and the Coon would even venture to call him “all right” if not for the fact that Mysterion’s popularity very annoyingly exceeds his own. 

“Well, at least Chaos got one thing right this time ‘round,” the Coon smirks, “if anyone needs to be burned alive it’s those goddamn junkies sleeping on the streets...”

When an uncomfortable silence descends upon the room in response, the Coon huffs and slams his meaty palm on the table. “Oh come on, you guys,” he drawls in exasperation, “don’t be pussies. _One_ waste of space hobo isn’t that much of a loss!”

Mysterion is the one who finally speaks up. “No life is less valuable than the other,” he says, “...but that’s not exactly what we’re thinking of right now. You see, the fire is most likely going to be ruled...an accident.”

Whatever the Coon was expecting, it wasn’t this. To him, the incident is so obviously Chaos that the psychotic supervillain might as well have confessed through fireworks emblazoned throughout the sky. “ _What_ ? Oh, those fucking investigators are such ball-sucking incompetent bags of _shit_!”

“I...I dunno, Coon,” Toolshed says uncertainly, “I’m tempted to agree with them. That tree must have been strung up with a million electric lights, at least. One of them could’ve malfunctioned, then— _kaboom_. It was a tragedy waiting to happen.”

“God, Toolshed, you are just as much of a ball-sucking, incompetent bag of shit as the police in this fucking town,” the Coon sneers. “I’m _so_ seriously, you guys. It was a fucking _fire_ . Chaos controls _lightning_ and _electricity_ . Tupperware, Mosquito: you didn’t hear any loud noises, did you? No goddamn _kaboom_ , right?”

“We were...a few blocks away,” Mosquito answers, looking at Tupperware nervously. “Toolshed, you meant _kaboom_ figuratively, right? An electrical malfunction could’ve been like _pop_ ! or _crack_ ! or maybe like, _bzzzzzz—crrrrrrrrrrrrackle—”_

“Shut the fuck up, Mosquito, you fucking retard,” the Coon snaps. “Okay, tell me this, then: besides the two of you, who weren’t even there when the goddamn thing started, were there any witnesses?”

“...No.”

“And what’s the number-one characteristic of all of Chaos’s crimes?”

“...No witnesses.”

“Exactly, Disarray always evacuates them beforehand somehow.”

“That doesn’t prove anything,” Tupperware argues. “It was 3 in the morning! Why would anyone be outside?”

“Uh, maybe ‘cause the weather was nice?” the Coon says sarcastically. “Or maybe ‘cause the whole town’s been jizzing their pants about this fucking tree since, like, last fucking December. Three in the fucking morning or not, I refuse to believe there wouldn’t’ve been a junkie or two getting high off its magical Christmas powers or whatever.”

"I dunno, man. Something's fishy about this,” Toolshed grimaces.

"You’re fucking stupid," the Coon replies. "Seriously, asshole, why are you giving that psychopathic scumbag the benefit of the doubt _now_?"

"I’m not _doubting_ that he has the capability to do something like this! It just doesn’t seem to...fit his MO.”

“Dramatic and traumatic, what _doesn’t_ fit?” 

“The fact that Chaos didn’t claim responsibility,” Call Girl cuts in. “The fame, the recognition, the _acknowledgement_ —isn’t that his whole thing, Coon? Heck, he even claims responsibility for crimes he probably didn’t do! He wants everyone to think they’re always at his mercy, all the time!”

The Coon nods. “Then use that clever little head you’re so famous for, Call Girl, and consider why he didn’t do that this time.” The clawed hero leans back in his chair with his arms folded and a self-satisfied smirk on his face. “He regrets it.”

“He regrets burning down the t-t-tr-t-t—tree?” Fastpass asks incredulously.

“Nuh-nuh-nuh-no, that’s not what I muh-muh-muh-meant, Fuh-fuh-fuh-fast-puh-puh-puh-puh-pass,” the Coon says mockingly. “I mean he regrets killing that hobo.”

There’s a unanimous scoff among the other heroes. “Oh, come on!” Toolshed exclaims, “we’re not in school anymore, Coon! Chaos’s prankster days are _long_ gone. He’s a cold-blooded killer now. How could he feel remorse?”

Next to the Coon, Mysterion shifts a little in his seat. Mysterion has faced off with and interacted with Professor Chaos more times than any of them, and he steadfastly holds the belief that Chaos isn’t all bad, that underneath the metal helmet is just a man, and that that man—whoever he is—can _indeed_ feel remorse. 

But Mysterion doesn’t challenge Toolshed, because it’s hard to make that argument when Chaos once took Mayor McDaniels hostage on live TV, shot her in the face, then maniacally laughed over her bloody corpse.

The Coon, however, is inclined to agree with Mysterion on this matter. “Oh, but he _can_ , Toolshed—and you wanna know why? Chaos only kills the people he thinks _deserves_ it. As much as he likes to spout that bullshit about leaving his victims up to chance, he’s actually a goddamn hypocrite who plans his attacks down to a T. He sees them as deliverances of justice. That hobo this time ‘round—it was the firefighters who found him after the fire was put out, right? I don’t think Chaos even knew that dude was fucking there—and that, right there—is a massive oversight on his part. And in the end, even though no one really gives a shit about a homeless nobody, there’s no justifying murdering him. Hence the reason Chaos’s been zip about the whole thing all day long. He _feels bad_.” 

The heroes’ reactions to the Coon’s theory is mixed. Fastpass looks contemplative, Tupperware skeptical, Mosquito nervous. Call Girl rolls her eyes and heaves a long-suffering sigh, and Toolshed says, “You know what I think, Coon? I think this is just another one of your stupid conspiracy theories—”

“Toolshed,” Mysterion suddenly says. “I actually agree with the Coon. I think this was Chaos.”

This immediately shuts the tool-wielding hero up. The Coon smirks; he will always and forever consider Mysterion an asshole, but this time the Coon is grateful for said asshole’s support, because the other pigheaded members of Coon & Friends actually respect Mysterion’s opinion and will shut their fat mouths to listen to what he has to say. 

“Good to know you ain’t as stupid as Toolshed,” the Coon says.

Mysterion half-smiles. “I try my best,” he replies, “but there’s still something my Neanderthal brain doesn’t understand. Care to enlighten us, Coon?”

The Coon bares his teeth predatorily. “Hit me with your worst, baby.”

Fastpass wolf-whistles obnoxiously, but the Coon and Mysterion both ignore him. “I know the Professor is a meticulous planner,” Mysterion begins, “but he still likes to maintain the illusion of randomness. Attacking Christmas is just about the most generic evil thing a bad guy could do. Why would he risk turning into some second-rate predictable holiday-spoiler just to do _this_?”

The Coon shrugs. “To keep us on our toes, I suspect,” he leers, “so we spend every single holiday from now on in fear of an attack. Or maybe...maybe he just hates Christmas too goddamn much to resist. He fucked up.”

Mysterion frowns. “It’s not like the Professor to fuck up so many things up so badly in just one incident.”

“ _You’re_ the one who keeps insisting that Chaos is only human, Mysterion,” the Coon says. “Well guess what humans do? They fuck up.”

Suddenly, Mosquito pipes up, “I just don’t understand how anybody could hate Christmas. Fucking _Christmas_ , man! It’s the best time of the year.”

Nobody refutes Mosquito’s statement, but after several seconds, the Coon can’t help but break into uncontrollable laughter. 

“What’s so funny!” Mosquito exclaims, blushing.

“Oh, nothing, nothing,” the Coon chortles. “Just how fucking dumb you are is all!” Because Mosquito’s naivety is heartbreakingly hilarious. How could anybody hate Christmas? Oh, the Coon knows how.

He knows all too well.

“You understand the Professor so well,” Mysterion says to the Coon softly. The Coon then stops laughing because the conversation is no longer funny.

It’s a well-worn conversation between Mysterion and the Coon—one which they wisely keep far away from the ears of the rest of Coon & Friends. Mysterion has somewhat of an obsession with Professor Chaos, but not one that’s limited to taking the evil villain down. No: Mysterion actually thinks there’s enough humanity inside Professor Chaos to convince him to switch sides. On the countless occasions the two have met, Mysterion always tries to persuade Chaos in one way or another. However, not _once_ has the immortal succeeded at getting through to the villain. 

The few encounters the Coon has had with Chaos, however, are a different story. Somehow, the clawed hero is able to draw the blond villain away from fighting through words alone. Amid crumbling buildings, screaming civilians, cooling corpses, and, for lack of a better word, _chaos_ , the Coon and the Professor are able to hold, riddled with barbs and insults though they are, actual _conversations_ . His ability to somehow _understand_ Chaos’s twisted way of thinking is something for which Mysterion both admires and bitterly envies the Coon.

_“Can’t you just_ try _to talk to him?” Mysterion had pleaded. “Powers like his—imagine what they could do for_ good _! He’ll never listen to me, he hates me, but with you it’s a different story! We...you...can still save him!”_

In the present, the Coon scowls at Mysterion’s hopeful expression. “I know what you’re thinking, and my answer is still the same,” the Coon snaps. “It’s impossible.”

* * *

There’s a collective sigh of relief when the Coon & Friends meeting finally ends. Jimmy runs off before any of them have the chance to even blink at him, and Cartman quietly envies his crippled colleague’s speed. He wants nothing more than to get the hell out of there as quickly as he can and return to his Terrance and Phillip reruns. 

Stan has pulled Wendy off to the side, the two of them speaking in low tones. For years now, Stan’s been stuck between Wendy and Kyle, wanting into both their pants and unable to choose just one of them. Considering that Wendy’s a dirty bitch and Kyle’s a dirty Jew, Cartman thinks that Stan’s taste really couldn’t get any shittier, and that Stan just might be the most pathetic human being in the history of the Earth.

Cartman hears Token wishing Kenny a Merry Christmas, and he quickly slides out the door before any of them have the opportunity to do the same to him. He’s only a couple of feet away from where his Coonmobile is faithfully parked when he hears the familiar buzzing of mosquito wings behind him. 

“Dammit,” he groans.

“Eric, wait!” Clyde calls as he flies to catch up with Cartman. 

Cartman slaps his forehead with his palm. “Don’t call me Eric, Clyde,” he grumbles without bothering to turn around. “It’s fucking _Cartman_ , okay? Jesus.”

“It feels weird to keep calling you that,” Clyde says stubbornly as he lands lightly on the Coonmobile’s hood. “Cartman is just your last name, but we’re family now.”

“Ay, asshole, get off my fucking car!” Cartman barks. “And no, we’re not family—we’re practically different species, bugboy! Don’t fucking kid yourself!”

“We _are_ family, _Eric_!”

“No we’re _not_!”

“Uh- _huh_!”

“Nuh- _uh_!”

Half a year ago, Liane Cartman and Roger Donovan had joined hands in the holy act of matrimony. Logically, Cartman knows that it could’ve been worse. His mother had waited until he was all grown up before getting married; he’d had her to himself for all of his childhood and teen years. Roger Donovan is an okay, albeit dreadfully boring, dude. And Cartman is actually cool with Clyde—Clyde’s one of the few people Cartman actually _likes_. 

But Liane is Cartman’s _mother_ , and she’s the only person in the world that Cartman _loves_. And so, out of his love for her, and also because he’s a fully-grown man and not an embarrassingly impulsive fourth grader, Cartman had refrained from murdering Liane’s groom, or her stepkids-to-be, or otherwise ruining her wedding. He’d even sat through the entire accursed ceremony and held his peace. But he’s avoided her since, because he doesn’t think he can look at her blissfully-married face without slapping it.

It’s not that Cartman doesn’t want her to be happy. But for so long, her little poopsikins had been enough to make her so. Cartman doesn’t understand why he isn’t enough anymore.

The worst part is that Clyde is one of the few Coon & Friends heroes who told his family about his secret identity (not that the Donovans would have had any trouble figuring it out, considering that their son was literally born with insect wings growing out of his back). And because stupid Roger Donovan didn’t want to keep any secrets from his new _wife_ , Liane Cartman now also knows that her stepson is the infamous Mosquito. Cartman has absolutely no desire to know what she thinks of that, especially since she has no idea that her own son is the Coon.

No: Cartman’s mother doesn’t even know that he has powers at all. Cartman never told her, because as much as he loves her, he trusts her about as far as he can throw her. 

Sometimes, the injustice of it all makes him really fucking mad. 

And here to rub it in his face is fucking Clyde crybaby-pussy fucking Donovan. Cartman’s least-favorite (and only) stepbrother crosses his arms and pouts. “Things are going well at home, you know—we finished setting up the Christmas tree last week—”

“Did I _fucking_ ask?” Cartman growls.

“Well—no, but—I thought you’d like to know _,”_ Clyde insists. “Anyway, Clara wants to help prepare Christmas dinner this year, which is a bummer because it probably means we’ll all be eating ashes instead of turkey—that girl can’t boil _water_ without burning it—”

“Look, Clyde,” Cartman snaps, “I don’t fucking care if Clara burns the turkey or shoves it up her fat cunt—she’s _your_ sister, _not_ mine.”

“But—but—”

“But-but-but-but nothing, asshole. Look, cut it with the small talk and get to the fucking chase, will you? I’m a busy man.”

Clyde fidgets for a few seconds, clearly apprehensive about outright saying whatever’s on his mind. But he finally gives in, throwing his hands into the air with a huff. “Fine! I’ll say it! She misses you. Okay? Won’t you at least call her?”

“Who? Clara?” Cartman smirks. “Why would she miss me? As far as I remember your sister has never ridden this big fat monster cock before.” Cartman points at his crotch obscenely. “But of course, so many bitches throw themselves at me that she might’ve gotten lost in the numbers—“

“ _Ewwwww_ ! Shut up, don’t talk about Clara like that!” Clyde cries. “And don’t play dumb, you know exactly who I’m talking about—your _mom_ , motherfucker, I’m asking if you won’t call your fucking mom!”

“ _That_ hoe?” Cartman feigns nonchalance, even though his stomach is twisting uncomfortably. “Why would I want to call her? Twenty years of listening to her naggity-naggity-nag—uh, no fucking thanks, señor. If you Donovans wanna sacrifice your eardrums listening to her big fat cocksucking mouth, be my fucking guests.”

Clyde rolls his eyes. “Are we even talking about the same person? She isn’t naggy or loud at all! In fact, she’s surprisingly sweet, considering that she raised an asshole like you—“ Clyde suddenly gasps, as though realizing something. “Oh, you _dick_. You’re just pretending not to care! Secretly, you miss her like hell, don’t you?”

Cartman’s scowl darkens. “Shut the fuck up, Clyde.”

“You’re being immature, you know. She loves you more than anyone. Me, Clara—even Dad—we don’t hold a fucking candle in comparison to her love for you. Your jealousy is unfounded!”

“HA! Jealous? _Me_?” Cartman laughs. “As if I’d ever be jealous of a loser like you! You’re the one who’s jealous of me—because of my totally hot body and—monster cock, probably—”

“Oh my _god_ , Eric, not everything is about cocks—” 

“That’s pretty fucking hypocritical coming from you, Mr. Playboy!”

Clyde winces, then takes a deep breath in an attempt to collect himself. “Look. I don’t care if you hate us. Okay? That’s fine. But will you at least come home for Christmas dinner? You don’t even have to get any of us presents. Your being there would be enough for Mom—“

Cartman feels his blood run cold. “Don’t. You. _Fucking_ . Dare. Call. Her. Mom. She is _not_. Your mother.” 

Clyde looks frightened by Cartman’s dangerous tone, but he bravely steels himself and puffs out his chest. “N-no, Eric. _I’m_ the one who’s been _there_ for her every single fucking time she’s been worrying about you for the past six months. And just for your information, it’s been a hell of a lot of times. I’ve been more of a son to her than you—and if you don’t come home for Christmas, I’ll call her Mom as much as I fucking want!”

Cartman hears the roar before he’s aware that he’s the one producing it. With lightning speed that would put Fastpass to shame, Cartman grabs Clyde by the collar, pulls him off the hood of the Coonmobile, and throws him to the ground. Clyde yelps in pain as he lands on his wing, but Cartman can’t muster up any guilt for hurting him. All of his drying reserves of compassion are being used to keep himself from stomping on Clyde’s nose till it caves. 

“Listen up, asshole,” Cartman snarls at Clyde, whose eyes appear suspiciously wet, “your mom’s name is Betsy, and she is _dead_ . DEAD, you hear me? I really don’t give a fuck if _your_ mom’s so easily replaceable to you, but don’t you DARE replace her with Liane, or I will cut out your spleen and give it to Chaos as a Christmas present, got it?”

“Wait—Eric, I’m sorry—I didn’t mean it like—“

Cartman slaps him to shut him up, then gets up and stomps over to the Coonmobile. He pauses before getting in and turns back to Clyde. 

“Actually, _brother_ , I got _two_ Christmas presents for the family this year,” he says, and he holds up both middle fingers.

Leaving Clyde to gingerly pick himself up off the ground, sputtering pleas and apologies all the while, Cartman gets in his car, slams the door, and drives away.

* * *

South Park authorities continue investigating the destroyed Christmas tree for the next three days, on the last of which—the day before Christmas Eve—the incident is finally officially ruled an accident.

“I know everyone’s a little shocked and upset over this whole thing,” Officer Yates says in a press release on television, “but my boys combed through _all_ of the evidence and there wasn’t a single scrap that suggested that the tree was set on fire by a black guy, Muslim guy, or even a Mexican guy. There was no foul play, my friends. This was an accident…”

The camera returns to the newsroom. “Even though the cause of the incident has been officially ruled an accident,” says the news anchor Tom Thompson, “public opinion is still divided, with many who continue to believe that Christmas Tree Fire, which claimed one life, was an act of arson and homicide.”

Now the camera goes to South Park’s Town Hall. “I know this was no accident,” Stephen Stotch says emphatically into the microphone. “Accidents are God’s way of punishing us, and I believe with all my heart that, sinful as we are, the Lord wouldn’t choose to do so so close to the day of Jesus’s birth. No—the one who wanted to punish us is still out there, waiting to punish us again, as he has so many times in the past. The evil terrorist who calls himself Professor Chaos—”

Cartman snorts from where he’s seated on his couch. Even though he agrees with Stotch’s verdict, he can’t help but find the rest of the man’s rhetoric utter drivel. Cartman genuinely wonders whether the man is truly so devoted to his “Lord God”, or if he simply wishes to present himself to the public that way. And if he really does believe all the bullshit that comes out of his mouth, then what does Stotch think God was punishing him for when he was robbed of his only child? 

That is, of course, if he didn’t actually kill the kid himself. 

“—Do you have anything to add, Mrs. Stotch?” an offscreen reporter asks on the television. 

With a grim expression on his face, Mr. Stotch puts his arm around his wife, who, predictably, has dark tear tracks running down her cheeks. One would think that a woman who cries as much on live television as Linda Stotch does would abstain from wearing so much mascara. 

“Oh, n-n-nothing important,” she sniffs, stuttering so much through her tears that she could give Jimmy a run for his money. “I’m just t-t-thinking about my little b-b-boy. Oh, did he love the pretty lights ever so much. Hearing about this would’ve just—k-k-k-killed him!”

Frowning at her ominous choice of words, Cartman grabs his remote control and changes the channel. The South Park news channel is just a glaring demonstration of the unbelievable incompetency and hypocrisy of the people in this shitty town. 

“I know what you did, Chaos,” Cartman says lowly to nobody in particular. 

An obnoxious Christmas commercial now blares from his television, but Cartman’s too distracted to even be pissed off about it. The echoes of little Stotch’s mother’s screams are still ricocheting inside his skull, each of her piercing wails rattling his brain like the merciless screeching of a poorly-played violin.

Cartman groans. He’d planned to stay burrowed in his house until Christmas had rolled by in the outside world, but now he doesn’t think he can stand staying cooped up. He’s too restless; the thoughts in his head are too loud, and the walls of his house are boxing him in like a prison. So he gets up and digs out his Coon costume. It’s not his turn to patrol, but no harm can be done from an extra hero keeping an eye on the streets. 

He hopes he runs into some shitbags he can beat up.

In the end, though, Cartman isn’t able to leave the house right away, because South Park’s cursed skies suddenly decide to snow rather heavily for several hours. Cartman spends those hours alternating between pacing around his living room and eating some of the dozens of frozen meals piled up in his freezer. He even gets bored enough to work out for a little bit, but none of this is enough to work off his edginess.

By the time the blizzard finally stops, it’s already well past midnight and into the virgin hours of December 24. The snow stops as suddenly as it started, leaving the streets oddly still with several inches of unblemished white blanketing the ground. Cartman doesn’t waste an extra second dawdling. He clambers into the Coonmobile, thankful that he had the foresight to fit his beloved vehicle with state-of-the-art custom-made winter tires.

He drives mindless circles around town, glaring at the gaudy Christmas decorations people have set up around their homes. He drives past the Marshes’ house, on the front lawn of which is a massive blow-up Santa that looks positively hideous—courtesy of Randy, most assuredly. He drives past the Broflovskis’ house, where a picture of a menorah and the words _Happy Hanukkah_! are strung up over the garage. If he weren’t in his hero costume, Cartman isn’t sure he’d be able to resist spray painting dicks all over their stupid Jewish decor. 

He drives past the house that used to be his and his mom’s, but now belongs to both his mom and the Donovan family. Cartman refuses to even look at it, but from the periphery of his vision he can tell that its lights are out, just like the rest of the houses on the street. Cartman can’t help but wonder whether his mom and Mr. Donovan are really asleep, or whether they’re in their bedroom having hot, steamy, disgusting sex in the dark. 

And a few more houses down, Cartman passes by the reddish-brown house the Stotches used to live in. Stephen and his wife had moved to another house after their son’s disappearance, and no one had moved in since, no doubt fearful that they too would mysteriously disappear if they lived there. 

There’s no one, thugs or otherwise, on the streets for Cartman to fight with. It’s to be expected, since it’s fuck o’clock in the morning and really fucking cold out. The only establishment with its lights still on is the now-24/7 City Wok, but for once Cartman isn’t hungry so he doesn’t go in. 

Instead, he drives to the center of town.

Cartman parks the Coonmobile in an alley before walking two blocks to the ruins of the burnt tree. All of its needles and decorations have been turned to ashes, but its massive trunk and most of its spidery branches are still intact, completely blackened from the heat it endured. The clouds in the sky are just beginning to clear up, and the bit of moonlight that peeks through casts the tree’s skeleton in a ghostly light that harkens back to Halloween.

Cartman ducks underneath the yellow police tape that surrounds the ruins. His acute, raccoon-like sense of smell is assaulted with the odor of something charred, but it’s not coming from the tree. After three days and a snowstorm, there’s no way the tree still smells so strongly.

_This_ is the smell of cloth and flesh, freshly scorched. 

Cartman follows the scent around to the other side of the tree, and—lo and behold, there it is—

Mysterion’s corpse _._

It took a while for all of them to fully believe it, but everyone in Coon & Friends now knows that Mysterion can’t die. Dr. Timothy had seen memories of countless otherwise-inexplicable deaths in Kenny’s mind, and shared them with the rest of the group using his telepathic abilities—it hadn’t been difficult to accept after that, since Kenny’s immortality is far from the strangest of superhuman powers in existence. Since then, the members of Coon & Friends have been able to remember Kenny’s deaths with varying degrees. The Human Kite can remember about 70% of them. Toolshed, much to his dismay, is never able to remember any of them at all. The Coon is the only one who can consistently remember _all_ of Mysterion’s deaths—rather ironic since he’s also the least sympathetic to immortal’s plight. 

Cartman kneels down in the snow to take stock of the fallen hero’s body. Despite all his memories of Kenny’s demises, Cartman doesn’t think he’s ever had the chance to properly look at Kenny after Death has dealt its blow. In the past, Kenny always died in the midst of action, and nobody ever had time to grieve his body—and before they knew it, he’d be reborn again anyway so what did it matter? 

Mysterion looks so lifeless now that it’s hard to imagine that he will ever come back. He’s lying spread eagle on his back, his cape pooled around him like dark angel wings. His hood has fallen back just enough for several of his dirty blond locks to peek through. His eyes are wide open, the blue-green orbs glassy as they stare sightlessly at the sky. Kenny’s eyes are so blank and devoid of expression in death that he might as well be buried ten feet under for all the secrets they don’t reveal. However, it’s the gaping wide, massive, still-hot, still-smoking hole in the middle of Mysterion’s chest that tells Cartman exactly what—or rather, who—was the last thing Kenny saw before he died. 

“Chaos!” Cartman growls, bolting upright and spinning around. Not twenty feet away from him is Chaos in the very flesh. The supervillain is floating several inches off the ground like a levitating douchebag. The crunchy snow beneath his feet is untouched, which explains how he was able to sneak up on Cartman without making a sound. 

This isn’t the first time Chaos has killed Mysterion—nor the most violent, even. Cartman sometimes wonders whether Chaos knows that Mysterion can’t die, because the lightning-wielding villain takes Mysterion’s life with a casual flippancy that is rather alarming, every single fucking time.

Then again, that’s not saying much because Chaos’s regard for human life other than Mysterion’s is also a rather fucked up thing indeed. 

Cartman wonders how Chaos would feel about killing _him_. 

The thought sends Cartman’s heart beating at a wild staccato. He’s alone, without backup, with the craziest fucker in town. Mysterion is dead. He could very well be next. A force to be reckoned with Cartman may be, but in a one-on-one match against Chaos, he is severely handicapped: Chaos’s long-distance, high-speed, high-damage powers are the perfect foil to Cartman’s animalistic brute force attacks. 

_C’mon, Coon_ , Cartman chides himself, _Chaos may have the upper hand but you’re one totally smart motherfucker. You can sweet-talk your way out of this with your smart fucking mouth. Make a deal with him. Offer to suck his dick or something._

“Wanna get your dick sucked?” Cartman blurts before his opponent has the chance to say anything. 

Suddenly, Cartman’s heart rate is accelerating for an entirely different reason. 

Cartman _almost_ regrets speaking too soon, but then Chaos’s mouth falls open in such a comical manner that Cartman supposes anything would’ve been worth seeing that dumbass expression on the villain’s face. 

“W-w-what?” Chaos squeaks, sounding less like an evil murderer and more like a prepubescent boy who’s just heard the word “sex” for the first time. The villain is so nonplussed that he somehow trips on his feet _whilst still hovering in midair_ , and lands on the snow in an ungraceful tumble.

Cartman throws his head back and laughs, because that was goddamn hilarious. He suddenly feels like he’s already won. “Did I fucking st-st-stutter?” he smirks.

Chaos blinks. “Wuh-well, yeah you did, j-just now…”

Cartman rolls his eyes. “Clearly, you have no idea of the concept of sarcasm.”

“I know what sarcasm is!” Chaos protests, and Cartman half-expects him to stomp his foot like a child. “I just didn’t know you were bein’ sarcastic!” Then Chaos looks around nervously, as if fearing that someone might overhear their conversation. But there are no unwelcome ears around. Chaos takes a hesitant step closer to Cartman, then hisses, “And what the almighty heck didja mean, if I wanted to—if I wanted, um—you know—“

“Pop your cock out, stroke it nice and hard, then get it sucked and fucked like a fucking vacuum cleaner?” 

Chaos’s helmet does nothing to obscure the redness of his face. “M-my—my _wiener_ —oh, jeez—now why—why would I want something like that? Coon?”

Cartman shivers slightly at the beseeching way Chaos says his name. “I dunno, why wouldn’t you? It’s a fucking blowjob, bro!” Then a delicious thought occurs to Cartman. “Unless you’ve never had it sucked before. Hmm? Oh my fucking god, if I find out that _the_ fucking Professor Chaos is a fucking virgin—“

“I’m not a virgin!” Chaos blusters, totally forgetting to be quiet. “There was a cute girl, Charlotte, and she—t-t-touched my wiener, once, and did all those—things, and—” Chaos suddenly stops short. “Hey, wait a minute, Coon. What’s it to you? Whether I’m a virgin or not?”

Cartman is a bit surprised that Chaos would willingly mention the name of a possible acquaintance, but it’s not much to go on since Charlotte is too common a name. Still, he files the information away in his mind for later. “It would explain a few things,” he tells Chaos smugly.

“What? Explain _what_ ?” Chaos asks, flustered. Still, he seems to understand that Cartman is taking a jab at his masculinity, so he puffs up his chest in an attempt to appear more impressive. “Well, what if I said yes? Huh, Coon? That I _do_ want to have my wuh-wiener s-sucked?”

“Then I’d fucking eat your fucking hot dog, man,” Cartman says blithely, and this time it’s his turn to suppress the flush that unwillingly graces his cheeks.

But it’s doubtful that Chaos is in a state of mind to notice. “But, but! Why, why _you_?”

“Who else is gonna do it? _That_ motherfucker?” Cartman snorts, pointing at Mysterion’s prone form.

“What!” Chaos exclaims. “He’s dead! I _killed_ that—motherfucker!”

“Oh, so _that’s_ how it is. I see, Mr. Dahmer. You like your meat cold cut, huh?”

“Huh?” Chaos says rather stupidly. 

“Fucking hell, you’re so stupid,” Cartman sighs long-sufferingly. “What I mean is, you only fuck dead bodies, huh?”

Chaos’s eyes bulge and he shakes his head so violently Cartman half-expects the metal helmet to come flying off. “WHAT! No, no, no, I don’t do that kind of—no way, Jose, nuh-uh, not me, I swear!”

“Oh, good, you scared me for a second there, sicko. So I still have a chance, Prof?”

“A chance?” Chaos goggles. “You mean you _want_ to—” 

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Cartman snaps. “I don’t _want_ to go anywhere your slimy villain cock, dickhole. But as much as I hate to admit it, you are one hard motherfucker to beat, and I don’t want to die. The Coon needs to stay alive—he’s a fucking beacon of hope for this goddamn sadsack piece-of-shit town! So if sucking your stupid cock means you won’t kill me, I’ll fucking do it, dude. You do know it’s improper to kill someone after they’ve blown you, right? That’s like, totally not cool, man. Not cool at all.”

“I didn’t know that,” Chaos whispers, mystified.

“Yeah, well, I’m totally right. I bet you wouldn’t’ve snuffed out Myst so quickly if he’d gotten on his knees for you, hm?”

“That’s NOT true!” Chaos suddenly booms with rage so raw, Cartman actually takes a step back in surprise. “I would _still_ kill him if he gave me the, uh, the sweetest fuckin’ kiss in the whole wide world.” If Cartman weren’t so alarmed by Chaos’s change in mood, he would’ve found it amusing that Chaos places kisses at a higher value than blowjobs. “I would kill him no matter what he did or didn’t do, because I _hate_ him!” 

It takes several seconds for Cartman to regain his composure enough to formulate a response. “Wow, that’s...harsh, bitch.” He clears his throat. “But I guess I can’t blame you. Myst’s a fuckin’ asshole.”

Chaos’s eyes widen with surprise and glee at Cartman’s opinion. It seems the villain had expected the Coon to defend Mysterion. Chaos opens his mouth a few times, as though he wants to confirm that Cartman really _does_ think that Mysterion is an asshole, but in the end he decides not to give Cartman a chance to refute it. “Yeah, he is!” Chaos whoops instead. “Fuck you, Mysterion!” 

He spits in Mysterion’s direction, and even though the wad of phlegm and saliva lands a few feet shy of the hero’s body, the message is loud and clear.

Cartman crosses his arms, feigning impatience. “Well, _I’m_ not Mysterion, thank the shitty fucking lord. So what exactly is _our_ problem here? You want a blowjob or you wanna fight, bitch?”

And just like that, Chaos transforms back into a blushing, fidgeting kid. “Um—I—uh—“

“The fuck are you so indecisive for?” Cartman yells. “Do you think I’m too fat for you? Is _that_ it?” Cartman clutches his heart in mock offense. “Well _fuck_ you, I’m not fat, I’m buff! Your beauty standards are completely fucked up! That’s not cool, bro! _Not cool_!”

“What! No, no, that’s not it!” Chaos protests. “I admit I can be pretty picky about the folks I like lookin’ at, a-and Missus Kardashian will always be the most beautiful, in my books, but—I think you’re pretty beautiful too, Mister Coon! Your butt is almost as big as hers!”

Chaos’s words send a disorienting amalgam of indignance and pleasure slamming into Cartman. He’s pretty sure that another flush has just exploded on his cheeks, so he quickly masks it as rage and uses it to fuel his ongoing verbal assault on Chaos. “Is it because I’m a dude, then? Are you a fucking homophobe? Fuck you, Chaos, that’s not cool! Everyone should be allowed to fuck, even if they’re dirty fucking faggots!”

“No, no, no, that’s not it, either! Bicurious or not, it doesn’t matter to me! Love in any form is beautiful.”

“Okay, then—is it because I’m a fucking raccoon?”

Chaos looks like he’s about to deny once again, but changes his mind at the last minute. “No, I mean, I, uh—yeah!” he gushes.

“I assure you, all my _bits_ are very human and _very_ manly.”

“Y-yeah, but what about your teeth?” Chaos asks, squirming. He points at Cartman’s mouth. “You have sharp raccoon teeth, and what if you, uh, scratched me, if I were, to, you know, um, suh-stick my, wiener, in your m-m-mouth.”

“Oh, so the great big Professor Chaos is _scared_!” 

“What! No I’m not! Watch—watch your fuckin’ mouth, Coon!”

“Oh yeah? Or what? You’ll bite my dick off? Too bad you don’t have my sharp, sharp teeth to do it for you, sucker!” Cartman grins at the villain, exposing his razor-edged retractable canines in their full glory. “Don’t be _scared_ , Chaos. You can trust me. I don’t _bite_.”

Chaos’s expression darkens. “But I don’t —I _can’t_ fuckin’ trust you, Coon. I was here first! And then you come here, like you own the goshdarned place, you start askin’ me to—to—to stick my wiener in weird places, and, and—” 

“Hey, my mouth isn’t a ‘weird place’—“

Chaos’s voice crescendos to a near hysterical level. “AND YOU’RE A GODDAMN _HERO_! YOU AND MYSTERION AND KITE BOY AND ALL THE REST OF YOU FUCKERS—ALWAYS STICKIN’ YOUR NOSES IN MY BUSINESS WHERE THEY DON’T BELONG!”

“So you ADMIT it!” Cartman shouts back, even as he begins taking cautious steps backwards. Chaos is getting more and more unhinged again. “The tree, the fire.” He gestures at the Christmas tree’s melancholy remains. “And that hobo who burned to a crisp. You _fucking_ psychopath. You were the one who did it, weren’t you.”

It’s a not a question. 

Cartman watches as Chaos’s face drains from cherry red to ghostly pale in a matter of seconds. The villain’s eyes are blown wide as he begins to tremble, his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides.

Then Cartman feels the hairs on the back of his neck standing up with telltale electricity crackling through the air.   
  


Cartman lunges for Mysterion’s corpse and holds the limp body in front of him as a literal human shield. Not half a second later, a bolt of lightning comes zipping from Chaos’s fist and hits the spot where Cartman’s face would’ve been if Mysterion’s neck hadn’t been in the way. The blow blasts Mysterion’s head clean off his body, and Cartman feels it whiz over his shoulder and tumble into the snow behind him. Cartman quickly drops the decapitated body as it—as well as its detached head—catch fire and rapidly sink into the melting snow.

“I may hate your fucking guts, Myst, but I think you just saved my fucking life!” Cartman yells, knowing that Mysterion will never know of his gratitude. He looks up and sees Chaos running towards him with a feral expression on his face, so he abandons both parts of Mysterion’s body and takes off. 

Cartman’s main concern is to get away. His Coon powers allow him to run fast, after all, but they’re no match for the speed of lightning. He sprints away from the clearing where the Christmas tree once stood and runs down a sidewalk, hoping to find an alley or corner dark enough for Chaos not to immediately spot him. He hears glass exploding beside him as Chaos’s lightning hits the facade of some unfortunate store Cartman doesn’t care to know the name of at the moment, the villain himself shouting incoherently all the while...

But as Chaos’s lightning misses him by more than ten whopping feet for the third time in a row, Cartman starts to realize that there’s something _off_ about Chaos’s attacks today. Lazy. Sloppy. True, Cartman’s never faced Chaos one-on-one before, but he still has enough experience to know that Chaos’s shots aren’t this imprecise. Not to mention that his lightning seems to lack _heat_ , somehow. Chaos uses his lightning to commit crimes of passion, but today—

Today it’s like Chaos’s heart isn’t fully _there_ . There _is_ no passion. And this whole time, he’s been pursuing Cartman on _foot_ , as though he’s forgotten that he has the power to _fly_. 

Still, that doesn’t mean that Chaos, who is inexplicably angry, has stopped trying to kill Cartman. The raccoonish hero realizes that running forever isn’t a viable option, because sooner or later he’s gonna run out of stamina and when that happens, nothing is going to stop Chaos, distracted or not, from turning his sorry carcass into a human lightning rod. 

_If only I could get him within my range,_ Cartman seethes to himself _, then I could rip that crazy twink in half!_ Meanwhile, Chaos somehow manages to send a dumpster flying into the air. Frozen bits of trash rain down upon them and Cartman only just manages to jump out of the way of the falling metal garbage canister. 

“AW, FUCKING _GROSS_! ALL RIGHT, THAT’S IT!” Cartman yelps as what could only be a plastic bag full of bloody tampons falls on his head. He digs his claws into the pavement, using them as a fulcrum to propel his body in a dizzying 180-degree turn. Without slowing down for even a millisecond, Cartman sprints back in the direction of the tree, zipping past a surprised Chaos as he does so. 

“H-hey, get back here!” Chaos yells. 

Cartman ignores him as pure adrenaline pumps through his body. Within half a minute, he’s sliding back underneath the yellow police tape surrounding the Christmas tree; Mysterion’s body has by now stopped burning and sunk almost completely into the snow, out of sight. Cartman doesn’t spare his colleague a second glance as he pounces onto the base of the blackened tree trunk and begins to scale upwards, his claws and roughened palms providing the appropriate friction to achieve what would be an impossible vertical climb for anyone without his powers.

The climb is difficult as the tree’s ligatures have been rendered brittle from the fire it endured; several times, Cartman nearly slips, but he grits his teeth and keeps going—raccoons are _great_ climbers, after all. By the time Chaos reenters the clearing, Cartman is already twenty-five feet off the ground. 

“DON’T THINK YOU CAN GET AWAY FROM ME!” Chaos shrieks up at him. Another telltale crackle fills the air, and then Chaos is rising up off the ground. In spite of the situation, Cartman can’t help but admire the sight of Chaos in flight. His style is so different from the two other flight-endowed individuals he knows: Mosquito, who flutters and buzzes about like a pest; and the Human Kite, who just zips around like a pathetic paper airplane. Chaos’s electrokinesis allows him to hover in midair, floating effortlessly like some otherworldly specter. 

When Chaos rises up to Cartman’s eye level, he extends his arms and cackles the manic laugh that so often strikes fear into the hearts of men. “That was some nice climbin’, Coon boy! Who woulda thought you’d be so graceful?”

Cartman grits his teeth, but says nothing, devoting all of his energy to what he’s about to do.

“I wasn’t kiddin’ when I said that you’re beautiful,” Chaos sighs, and _this_ nearly causes Cartman to lose his balance. “It’s really too bad that your mouth’s so naughty, and that you’re a FUCKIN’ HERO—I wouldn’t’ve killed you, even if you didn’t suck my wiener or whatever. But now you’re makin’ me do it—you’re makin’ me kill you, even though I don’t want to, all ‘cause you went diggin’ too deep and found out what you weren’t supposed to! Just a like the _fuckin’_ rat you are, I s’pose—”

“I’M NOT A FUCKING RAT, I’M A RACCOON!” Cartman shouts at the top of his lungs. With one deadly sweep of his razor-edged claws, he cuts off one of the tree’s heavy branches and flings it at Chaos with all his might. 

The villain sees the projectile flying in his direction and attempts to dodge it, but the sharp end of the branch still manages to lacerate the side of his torso. Chaos’s eyes widen, but, to his credit, doesn’t cry out; still, the force of the impact sends him plummeting out of the air and falling all twenty-five feet onto the ground below with a heavy thud. Chaos is lucky the snow was there to cushion his fall; otherwise, he probably would’ve broken a bone. 

Cartman doesn’t waste time to allow Chaos to regain his composure. He jumps from his perch, his raccoonish limberness carefully controlling his fall so that he lands on all fours right on top of Chaos. The villain lets out a pained gasp as the wind is knocked out of him by Cartman’s full weight. 

Cartman grins as he grabs Chaos’s face and turns it to face him, making sure that the villain gets a full view of every single one of the sharp teeth he was so afraid would bite his dick off. Cartman lifts his claws high above his head, prepared to bring them down on Chaos’s neck like a machete—

—and then, Chaos bursts into tears.

Cartman ignores him at first, convinced that the display is just one of Chaos’s distractive ploys: after all, one extra second may be all Chaos needs to escape. But Cartman falters when he catches sight of Chaos’s expression. Genuine snot and tears are pouring out of Chaos’s face, which is kind of gross, but it’s the utterly vulnerable look in the villain’s eyes that ultimately give Cartman pause. Chaos’s eyes glimmer like pools of liquid aquamarine that just might disintegrate at the merest touch. It’s like nothing Cartman’s ever seen before, and yet there’s something captivatingly, chillingly _familiar_ about Chaos’s tear-filled orbs.

Cartman can’t quite put his finger on it.

  
With Chaos still firmly pinned underneath him, Cartman can feel every hiccup and every shudder of the villain’s body. He realizes that this is the first time he’s ever been so physically _close_ to South Park’s villainous tormentor. Where Chaos has always been a looming, maddening presence on the horizon, the very scourge of Coon & Friends’ existence, close up he just seems like...a kid. 

A frighteningly frail, weak kid at that. From what Cartman can feel underneath him, Chaos is all bones and very little muscle. It explains why Chaos always leaves close-range, hand-to-hand combat to General Disarray and his minions. The face underneath the helmet would’ve been a handsome one if not for the gauntness of the cheekbones and the severe shadows underneath the eyes.

“Jesus fuck, do _you_ look like _shit_ ,” Cartman says honestly. Chaos looks so tired and malnourished that Cartman is getting hungry just _looking_ at him. He wonders if Chaos has always looked this way, or if recent stress might’ve caused it. 

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” Chaos whispers. He reaches up and weakly grabs Cartman’s collar. “You have to believe me! I didn’t know he was there! He wasn’t supposed to die!”

Cartman slowly takes in the guilt that seems to be pouring off of Chaos in waves. _Seems like I was right on the money. Toolshed is never gonna believe this_. 

“All I wanted to do was wreck everybody’s Christmas,” Chaos continues hoarsely. 

Cartman laughs shortly. “Fucking psychopath,” he snorts, although there’s no heat to it.

“I’m NOT a psychopath!” Chaos exclaims. 

“Says the murderous villain!”

“Psychopath a-and villain ain’t the same! I just wanted to watch the pretty tree catch fire, Coon. You have no idea...just how much prettier it looked that way. But that fella, h-he—” Chaos chokes on his words. “How was I s’posed to know he was sleepin’ in there? If he was really so cold—h-heck, I’d’ve given him a blanket if he woulda just asked me. I could’ve made him a minion—if he w-wanted, that is—he could’ve had a better life, I could’ve helped him kill the real fuckers who FUCKED him over and left him outside to ROT WITHOUT A FUCKIN’ HOME. But now he’s DEAD, COON!” Chaos suddenly smiles a broken, hollow smile and stares distantly at some point over Cartman’s shoulder. “Don’t call me a fuckin’ psychopath, Coon. You have no idea what it’s been like.” 

“Don’t fucking assume what I do or don’t know,” Cartman snaps, but as he looks down at Chaos’s expression, he concedes that the villain is right. Cartman has never seen anybody look so... _tormented_ before. 

And even though a healthy dose of schadenfreude has never failed to raise Cartman’s spirits in the past, right now he only feels an odd sense of discomfort. 

His eyes latch onto something else, and he forces himself to laugh. It sounds cruel and obnoxious to his own ears. “Dude, is that why you’re dressed like a funeral?” Cartman’s only just come to realize that, aside from the helmet, Chaos isn’t wearing his usual supervillain attire today, and is instead neatly buttoned into a crisp ebony suit. A dark green tie is the only thing that harkens back to his original costume. There’s a single white lily tucked into the front shirt pocket, although the flower is already squashed and wilted. “Did you actually come here...at fuck o’clock on Christmas Eve...to pay respects to the guy you killed? Holy shit, this is fucking hysterical.”

“I had to, because nobody else would!” Chaos cries. “Have you turned on the TV at any point in the past few days, Coon? The only thing the fuckers in this town can _think_ about is their precious Christmas Tree, ruined, when really it was just a pile of crappy wood and plastic ornaments in the first place. They don’t talk about the fella who lost his fuckin’ life. They never even told us his name!”

“I think that might be because his body was burnt past the possibility of ID’ing. Why don’t we just call him—let’s see—’Fucknuts McFuckface’—”

“Sh-shut up! Don’t _call_ him that!” Chaos barks, face twisting in further anguish. “They still shoulda at least held some kinda remembrance for ‘im. Something— _anything_ ! But—nothing. They’ve done _nothing_ because they’re all a bunch of assholes who don’t think you’re human if you’re a _nobody_.”

Cartman scoffs loudly and purposefully blows cold air in Chaos’s face. “Yawwwwwn! Christ’s smelly asshole, dude, who knew supervillains could be so fucking _boring_? Someone get me a fucking bed so I can nap to recharge my boredom-addled brain.”

“How could you say that?” Chaos gasps brokenly. “You’re not fuckin’ listenin’ to what I’m tellin’ ya—”

“No, shut the fuck up and listen to what _I’m_ telling _you_ , numbnuts,” Cartman snaps. “This place, South Park? This place is _hell_ . Just _look_ at this fucking dump. Honestly, you did Mr. McFuckface a fucking favor by sending him out of this place to hobo heaven, where he’s probably getting his dick sucked by Mormon hookers or whatever the fuck it is they have in a place like hobo heaven. Either that or your precious McFuckface was evil anyway and he’s burning in _actual_ hell right now, in which case he deserved what you did to him. And I’m more inclined towards the latter, because every single person in South Park _is_ a selfish, worthless, piece-of-shit asshole that can’t see past their own dicks. I’m a motherfucking _hero_ and I know that. And I’m pretty sure you knew that, too—I mean, you’re the one who spends all his time fucking them over for fun. So instead of crying to me like a little pussy bitch, why aren’t you out there _doing_ something about it?”

Chaos gapes up at Cartman. “Are you...are you _encouragin’_ me to...go fuck shit up, Coon?”

“Fuck shit up, blow shit up...whatever it is you stupid supervillains do to jerk yourselves off. I don’t give a fuck.”

For a long moment, Chaos stares up at Cartman as though he has never seen him before. Cartman stares back as a myriad of emotions swim about the villain’s troubled liquid eyes, like petals on the surface of a pool. 

Ugh, his eyes are so beautiful, it’s disgusting.

The disbelief in Chaos’s face slowly filters away; the aquamarine in his irises appear to crystallize as confidence returns to them. Chaos hastily wipes his runny face with the back of his perfectly tailored sleeve. When he removes his hand, there is a smirk on his face that is equal parts goofy and arrogant. Cartman privately thinks that Chaos goes through so many intense fucking moods so quickly that Cartman’s getting vertigo just watching him. 

“I always knew,” Chaos murmurs. He suddenly grabs onto Cartman’s collar again, and when his fingers graze Cartman’s neck, the raccoonish hero realizes that, despite his overall sickly appearance, Chaos’s skin is white-hot like a recently-extinguished candle. It’s logical that Chaos has higher-than-normal body temperature, considering the raw, electrokinetic power running through his veins, but neither rhyme nor reason can explain away the heat Cartman feels in the pit of his belly in response to Chaos’s touch.

“Knew what?” Cartman growls.

“That you’re a bad hero,” Chaos whispers.

“ _What_ did you fucking say?” Cartman snarls, offended. “I’m a fucking amazing hero, you fucking douchebag. The fucking _best_ . Are you forgetting who shot you out of the fucking air like a—like a fucking torpedo—with a _branch—_ “

“No, no, no, that ain’t what I meant, Coon,” Chaos breathes urgently. “You’re real great at _bein’_ a hero, you’re a real champ, buddy. What I meant is—you’re a hero, but you’re _bad_.” Chaos relinquishes Cartman’s collar and pokes him in the chest. “You’re a cute little rotten apple, you are.” Chaos’s eyes suddenly sparkle as something brilliant seems to occur to him. An excited grin replaces the smug smirk. “I like apples, ‘specially if they’re bad. I like ‘em a whole fuckin’ lot. You—you should join me, Coon. You should join Chaos.”

  
Cartman is reminded of all the times Mysterion entreated him to try to convince Chaos to turn a new leaf and join Coon & Friends. Cartman had never really seriously considered doing so, but neither had he ever expected the exact opposite to happen—for Chaos to try to entice _him_ to the other side. And if you’d asked Cartman a week ago, a day ago, or even an hour ago, what he’d do if ever confronted with such a question, he would’ve laughed in your face and said _no fucking way_ without a second thought. 

“I can’t,” is what Cartman says instead, and even then, it feels oddly insincere coming out of his mouth. “I fucking _can’t_ , Chaos, do you even know who I am? How could you even ask me that?”

Chaos continues to smile up at Cartman, even though his eyes lose a bit of their spark. “It’s a bummer, but I figured you’d say that,” Chaos says. “A-and that’s okay, I guess, but—but I need you to tell me one good reason why, Coon. Just one, itty-bitty, good fuckin’ reason and I’ll never mention it again.”

Cartman stares at Chaos, suddenly at a loss for words. Chaos’s grin widens, like he thinks Cartman’s silence in it of itself is a victory. 

In a way, Chaos is right. 

And then, before Cartman has the chance to begin formulating his bullshit response, the sound of wailing police sirens rips through the air.

* * *

Cartman sits in the driver’s seat of the Coonmobile in a deserted parking lot at the edge of town. The sun is making its upwards climb over the horizon. Christmas Eve has well and truly begun. Cartman realizes that this means he’s been awake for more than twelve hours, but he’s not the least bit tired.

How can he be, when South Park’s most wanted man is not five feet away from him, in the backseat of his car?

After the police sirens had sounded, Cartman had wasted no time hauling Chaos to his feet and dragging him to his parked Coonmobile. They’d been carelessly noisy during their fight; someone must’ve alerted the authorities about the commotion and the property damage.

Chaos had shown a surprising lack of resistance at being blindly led by a superhero; he’d followed Cartman willingly and given no complaints when Cartman ordered him to lie low on the floor of the Coonmobile’s back seat and not make a noise. The villain had even had the good sense to use his powers to melt the tracks they’d made in the snow.

Five minutes later, the police had discovered the Coonmobile in the alley where it’d been parked. There’s no doubt that had the car belonged to a civilian, it would’ve been searched top to bottom. Instead, two officers had asked Cartman whether he knew anything about the commotion that had just occurred. Cartman had told them that despite being in costume, The Coon was actually off duty; he’d simply come out for a midnight cruise and had parked near the center of town only to fall asleep. 

“I thought I might’ve heard some noise,” he’d told them. “But I didn’t see the fuckers who did it. You should try contacting the Human Kite, he’s the one who’s on official duty tonight. Maybe he saw something.”

Their intrinsic trust in the superhero system had led the officers to believe the mighty Coon’s words. Still, Cartman hadn’t wanted to stick around in case they suddenly decided to whip out their K-9’s and sniff out the illegal fugitive in his car. 

Cartman hadn’t lied in order to protect Chaos. No; as much as he despises incompetent badge-wearing sacks of shit, Cartman had still done it to protect said sacks of shit. He knows that if he’d allowed a confrontation to happen, Chaos would have _eviscerated_ those officers. Fucknuts McFuckface may have posthumously gained the villain’s sympathy, but the Park County Police Force is definitely not even close to being on Chaos’s mercy list.

Cartman had driven around South Park, looking for a place devoid of police or early-morning weed smokers, before finally arriving at an empty parking lot next to the road that would eventually lead out of South Park towards Fairplay. It’s here that he now sits, unsure of his next move. 

The logical step would be to drive his Coonmobile, and Chaos, straight to headquarters whilst sending an red-flag emergency alert to the rest of Coon & Friends—except Mysterion, of course. Mysterion is probably still dead, and will probably take a few more hours to regenerate. 

Capturing Chaos would be the ultimate trump card to regaining his superhero colleagues’ respect; after all, the electrokinetic supervillain is Coon & Friends’ “Undesirable No. 1”. Playing the crucial role in eliminating the threat that Chaos poses to the city of South Park would prove to the other heroes that Cartman is just as devoted as they are to keeping the people peaceful and safe. 

But Cartman realizes that he _isn’t_ . He plays the role of superhero for the sake of reputation, but when he’d told Chaos to go fuck shit up, he hadn’t been kidding. Cartman can care less whether Chaos kills one more or one _hundred_ more people in South Park. He can’t even find it in himself to truly feel a whit of sorriness for Fucknuts McFuckface, for whom the supposedly evil Chaos feels so much contrition.

_...tell me one good reason why, Coon…_

Why, indeed? Since when has Eric Cartman become a slave to ethics and the jurisdiction of a society he despises? 

From the backseat of his car comes the sound of shuffling. It startles Cartman out of his thoughts, because Chaos has hitherto not made a single peep. 

Cartman isn’t worried about Chaos escaping, because the Coonmobile is locked from the inside and can only be unlocked using fingerprint-sensitive locks. And, should Chaos attempt to use his powers, everything inside the vehicle is also fireproof. 

But after everything that’s transpired, Cartman somehow doubts that Chaos will try to attack him. 

Cartman hears Chaos shuffling around for several more seconds; then the shiny helmet emerges into view as Chaos begins climbing over the center console and into the passenger next to Cartman. The villain’s clambering looks oddly juvenile. 

Chaos is smiling widely when he finally settles himself next to Cartman. “I’m hurt,” the villain says sweetly.

But Cartman can only gape at him. The shuffling he’d heard in the backseat had apparently been Chaos in the process of undressing the upper half of his body; now, the white undershirt underneath Chaos’s pristine suit has been torn into a long strip which, for some reason, Chaos has tied around his waist. None of the rest of Chaos’s upper body is left to imagination. The man is so pale that it hurts Cartman’s eyes, and his delicate skeleton is clearly outlined by his skinny form. 

He looks so fragile.

“W-what?” Cartman utters stupidly when he’s finally gathered a fraction of his wits.

Chaos continues to smile so sweetly that it’s beginning to get creepy. “I said, I’m hurt,” he repeats. “You h-hurt me, Coon.”

And Chaos turns to show Cartman his other side, where the rest of his torn undershirt is bunched into a makeshift bandage at his ribs. It’s soaked with blood. 

“Holy motherfucking Christ!” Cartman yelps. His heart jumps to his throat in a confusing combination of disgust, worry, and guilt—guilt, because it must have been Cartman’s tree branch torpedo that did this to Chaos. Chaos had barely seemed anything more than winded, so Cartman had assumed that the branch hadn’t actually nearly _skewered_ the villain in fucking half. “You need—a hospital!” He almost says “you need Wonder Tweek”, because the accident-prone Tweek is the unofficial Coon & Friends medic.

But of course, Cartman then remembers that Chaos isn’t a Coon & Friends member.

“Nah, no I don’t,” Chaos denies. “I’m all good. In fact, I feel like dynamite! I just need—somethin’ to cover myself up so I can stop feelin’ like a stripper. You got somethin’ I can borrow, Coon? I left my favorite turquoise sweater back at home.”

  
Cartman numbly tries to process the fact that Chaos has a favorite sweater—and that it’s _turquoise_ —as he simultaneously wonders where exactly “home” is for a supervillain like Chaos. “I—yeah, sure, whatever,” Cartman mumbles, because as the shock of seeing Chaos’s wound wears off, he realizes that he can’t possibly waltz into a hospital with a wounded Chaos and not expect a whole slew of unwanted questions. 

He reaches underneath his seat and pulls out a spare Coon jacket, turns it inside out so that the Coon logo is hidden, and hands it to Chaos. 

“Why, thank you, sir!” Chaos chirps. He takes the offered piece of clothing and pulls it on. Because of Cartman’s bulky stature, which massively outsizes Chaos’s scrawny form, the villain ends up swimming in cloth. “Wow, almost a perfect fit!” Chaos exclaims, which is a terribly inaccurate statement. And yet…

...and yet, Cartman has the sudden and inexplicable desire to see Chaos swimming about in _his_ favorite sweater (which is red, not fucking turquoise, thank you very much—he’s not a lame-ass faggot). 

“...Sure,” Cartman croaks. The bulkiness of the Coon jacket only serves to make Chaos seem _that_ much smaller, but all thoughts of fragility have fled Cartman’s mind. Instead, all he can think about is Chaos’s remarkable tolerance for pain—the villain hasn’t winced _once_ throughout the entire ordeal despite all the blood he must have lost, or all the aggravation his injury must have suffered from his constant movement. 

Maybe the dude is just a _huge_ masochist.

“Why the fuck are you so happy?” Cartman asks. Chaos’s constant smile is starting to get creepily. 

“Aw, nothin’,” Chaos says, his tone turning wistful. “This just brings back good memories is all.”

“Getting stabbed by a Christmas tree brings back good memories? Well fuck me twice, you’re even more messed up than I thought.”

  
Chaos giggles. “Well of course I’m fuckin’ messed up, Coon! I’m a supervillain!” he says, as though there’s nothing wrong with this, which, Cartman supposes, _does_ prove Chaos’s point. “That ain’t what I meant, though. Whenever I used to get hurt as a kid, she would take me out to get ice cream. That’s one of the only times I ever got to eat ice cream, and sweet Jesus, did I love that sweet ice cold cream!” 

“Who the fuck is ‘she’?” Cartman questions as another pang of shock rides through his system. Of course Chaos used to be a kid. Of course Chaos likes ice cream—who doesn’t? But it’s still weird to think of the villain as a real person with a real childhood and real favorite foods. 

Cartman likes ice cream a lot too. 

The grin on Chaos’s face ever-so-slowly begins to fade in the face of Cartman’s question. It’s like watching the sun slowly fade from existence.

“Mom,” Chaos whispers.

“Momma’s boy, huh,” Cartman responds mockingly, even though Chaos’s response has unwittingly stirred his own memories of Liane. Unlike Chaos, Cartman ate ice cream almost every single day of his childhood. But sometimes, when he got sick, Liane would make him a beautiful banana split to have in bed. Those ice creams had always tasted extra special, in a way that had nothing to do with the extra whipped cream and ten different kinds of syrup that Liane would top them with. 

“Hey, Coon?” Chaos says softly. 

“What do you want?” 

“Actually, I kinda want ice cream,” Chaos answers. “Wanna go get ice cream?”

* * *

Maybe it’s the lack of sleep that does it, but Cartman really _does_ set off to find ice cream after that, because after thinking about all that ice cream, he really just wants to get it out of his brain and into his mouth.

“So _that’s_ how your car always disappears so quickly,” Chaos croons in delight when Cartman turns on the feature that reverts his Coonmobile into a normal car. “I always thought that maybe your Coonmobile could hide underground or somethin’. But this is like a darned Transformer! I love Transformers.”

”Yes, Transformers are _the_ shit,” Cartman agreed, although he secretly decides to consult with Toolshed the next time they see each other to see if the Coonmobile can’t have some kind of underground burrowing feature installed. 

On the car ride back into town, Cartman is dismayed to learn that Chaos apparently enjoys singing in the car. The villain has a terrible singing voice that somehow augments its cracking, nasally quality, as well as the Southern accent.

Why the hell does Chaos have a Southern accent? 

Eager to shut Chaos up, Cartman fishes for an appropriate topic for small talk. Cartman is usually an unflappable orator no matter the circumstance, but he now finds himself drawing a blank. The bizarre casualness of the entire situation is reducing him to a state of jitters, like a prepubescent boy trying to talk up a girl for the first time. 

Except Cartman’s not a prepubescent boy, he’s a grown man. And Chaos isn’t a girl, he’s a fucking supervillain. A fucking _boy_ supervillain. 

“So, uh…” Cartman begins awkwardly. Chaos doesn’t move away from the window, which he’d been gazing out of intently as though there were actually something fascinating to see out there, but he stops mid-”If You Leave Me Now” to indicate that he’s listening. “So. Where the hell is General Disarray? Aren’t the two of you butt buddies?”

Now that he thinks about it, Cartman realizes that he was really fucking lucky to have run into Chaos alone—a rare sight in it of itself. In public, Chaos is almost always flanked by a couple of minions or, at the very least, the second-in-command himself. Cartman doubts that he would have made it out unscathed had Disarray been with Chaos tonight. Coon & Friends have never been able to figure out what exactly Disarray’s powers _are_ , if he has any at all—but even though the ginger villain’s physical fighting skills are nowhere _near_ up to par with his electrokinetic master’s, he more than makes up for it in devastating intelligence and raw ruthlessness.

This time, Chaos does turn away from the window, all signs of cheer drained from his face. Cartman realizes that he must have chosen the wrong subject for a conversation-starter, but it’s too late to take it back now. 

“No,” Chaos answers slowly. “The General’s my second-in-command and best friend. Nothin’—nothin’ more.”

“Okay—I don’t believe for a second that he doesn’t eat your sausage for dinner—if you get my drift—or at least fantasize about it—but if _you_ like him so goddamn fucking much, then why the hell didn’t you bring him with you?”

There’s a beat. “He’s on vacation,” is Chaos’s reluctant answer. 

“I’d think Chaos wouldn’t take a holiday,” Cartman snips. 

“I’m a supervillain, not an evil slave-drivin’ corporate CEO or somethin’. All my boys—and, uh, gals—get days off.”

“Hmph—touche.”

“It’s Christmas,” Chaos adds, as though he needs to convince Cartman of the legitimacy of Disarray’s vacation. 

“And Disarray celebrates Christmas?” Cartman snorts.

Cartman hadn’t really meant anything by his comment, but Chaos takes it literally. “Yeah,” the villain grumbles darkly. “I _told_ him Christmas is stupid, but he wouldn’t fuckin’ listen to me, Coon! He wants to spend it with his _family_. Ain’t that the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard?”

“Sure,” Cartman agrees easily. It’s disconcerting to realize that a “bad guy” like Disarray has a family to celebrate Christmas with. Cartman wonders whether Disarray’s family knows that he’s a villain, the same way Roger, Clara, and Liane know that Clyde is a hero. And of course, this line of thought begs the question—”And what about you, Chaos? No one to open the presents with?”

Chaos tenses and scowls deeply. “No,” he growls, “I have no family.”

Cartman smirks. “Ooh, I hit a sore spot, didn’t I? Family’s a touchy subject, huh! Is that why you hate Christmas? Did Daddy get you nothing but a box of coal for being such a naughty psychopath?”

The hardness in Chaos’s expression doesn’t go away. “ _I have no family_ ,” he repeats through gritted teeth. 

Cartman is suddenly stricken with a pang of sympathy for Chaos. That despite being the biggest baddie in town, Chaos still has to watch his minions and his best-friend-and-maybe-fuckbuddy-Disarray go home for a happy holiday while he himself spends it alone. It reminds Cartman of himself, because even though he hates Christmas, he can’t avoid the ache he feels coming from the knowledge that all of his friends have something that he doesn’t. Even that poor asshole Kenny still has Karen to go home to. 

He thinks of Clyde and Roger setting up a Christmas tree in his old living room, and of Clara and Liane, who are probably in the kitchen by now, busy preparing their Christmas turkey. Liane had never made a turkey for Cartman at Christmastime before. And now she has the gall to celebrate Christmas, with her new family, as though she’d never fucked up Christmas for her own son in the past…

How dare she be happy without me, Cartman thinks.

Although none of this knowledge is new, Cartman feels a wave of genuine hatred for his mother for the very first time. 

Which is why he is able to say, very calmly, without feeling like he’s telling an ounce of a lie, “Calm your tits, Chaos. I have no family either. Christmas sucks ass, and I hate it too.”

Chaos whips his head around and looks at Cartman with wide eyes. That knee-weakening, trembling vulnerability returns to those blue, blue eyes, and Cartman has to force himself not to get lost in them. 

Focus on the fucking road, Cartman, he repeats to himself like a mantra. You can’t get die in a car accident now. You haven’t gotten your fucking ice cream yet. 

Beside him, Chaos’s tension deflates like a beach ball. “G-gee whiz. Really?” he asks. Cartman can tell without looking that there’s hope glimmering in Chaos’s cursed eyes and a smile on his cursed lips. 

God, this is so fucked.

The two of them fall into a comfortable silence after that. Chaos continues to be mesmerized by the view outside his window. Cartman’s plan is to drive to the mall, wherein there’s a decent Cold Stone. 

Which is why Cartman nearly jumps out of his skin when Chaos suddenly hollers, “Coon, Coon! Stop, stop, stop!”

“What, what!” Cartman screams in return. He slams on his brakes, and the car behind him is forced to swerves to avoid impact. Cartman’s first thought is of the police finally catching up with them, so he barely pays mind as the disgruntled driver behind him blares the car horn and sticks a middle finger out of the window at him.

“It’s a Christmas market!” Chaos squeals in joy. 

Cartman’s eyes follow Chaos’s pointer finger out the window, and he sees that they’re right by Stark’s Pond, where a number of festive, open-air stalls have been set up along the edge of the frozen lake, which itself has been turned into an ice-skating attraction. Cartman’s alarmed assumptions about getting caught by the police clash painfully with the extraordinarily harmless scene before him. In the end, everything simply melts down into rage. “What the actual FUCK, dude!” he bellows, grabbing Chaos’s shoulder and shaking it. “What the fuck did you almost give me a fucking heart attack for, you fucking fuck!”

Chaos is perturbingly unperturbed at being shaken like a doll. “It’s a Christmas market!” he repeats. Cartman begins to wonder whether Chaos is actually just a robot with a broken voice box set to repeat stupid the same stupid shit over and over again.

“Well, yeah, I heard you the first fucking time, dickwad! It’s a bunch of stupid jerks selling stupid Christmas shit to bunch of other stupid jerks. What’s the big fucking deal?”

“Mom used to take me to the Christmas market every December,” Chaos reminisces fondly.

“What the hell, Chaos? Did you fuck your mom or something? Why the hell are you so in love with her? You know, you can’t say shit about having no family and then talk about fucking your mom all the fucking time, motherfucker.”

This time, Chaos is too far gone to respond to Cartman’s accusations. “I’m crazy about Christmas markets,” the villain says dreamily. “I wanna check it out.” He shrugs his shoulder out of Cartman’s grasp and presses his nose to the window.

“Bro! Get your greasy nose off my fucking window!” Cartman orders. “And I thought you said you wanted ice cream! You can’t just change your fucking mind when we’re already halfway on our fucking way to fucking ice cream!”

“But there’s an ice cream stall right here, Coon! Look!” He points at the twelfth food stall.

“But I thought you hated Christmas!”

“I—I do!” Chaos protests defensively. “But I like markets—a-and ice skatin’ too!”

“How _old_ are you?”

“Not as old as you, obviously, you old—suh-spoilsport—geezer!”

“At least I’m not a virgin!”

Chaos throws his hands into the air in frustration. “I already told you, Coon, I ain’t a frickin’ virgin!”

“You act like one,” Cartman remarks scathingly. “I’m so seriously, like, out of your league, bitch. I don’t hang out with pathetic, grown virgin men!”

“I’m not a—” 

“Get out of my fucking car if you’re so eager to go to the stupid market like a fucking five-year-old! Seriously, what’s keeping you here?”

“ _You_ are,” Chaos replies calmly.

“No I’m fucking not! In fact, I’m telling you to leave! Make me forget that I ever met you! Or do you need me to get on my knees and—”

“O-oh no, not that again,” Chaos answers quickly. “And I didn’t mean that you’re literally keepin’ me here—o-or anythin’ like that. I’ll leave if you—if you really want me gone. I just meant—well I thought that—hmmm—“

Chaos falters and plays with his hands as his cheeks turn rosy.

“What? What the fuck is it? Stop being a pussy, Chaos, spit it out!”

“Wuh-well...it’s just no fun to go to the market by your lonesome, is all! So I was wonderin’ if...if you’d come with me. We can still get ice cream.”

And then Chaos deals the killing blow: he takes off his helmet and turns to Cartman with a pleading puppy-dog look in his eyes. 

Cartman has never seen Chaos without his helmet before. Without the sharp, metallic accents of his headgear, Chaos’s skin appears as pale as if he’d never seen the sun. His short blond hair, crackling with so much static electricity that there are visible sparks flying out of it, sticks out in every direction like some golden sea urchin. And somehow, in spite of the haggard contours of his face (and all the crimes under his belt), Chaos has still managed to retain an aura of soft, wide-eyed innocence. Cartman doesn’t think he himself has ever looked so innocent before, even when he was a small child.

But it’s the eyes underneath the pair of surprisingly hard-angled eyebrows that do it. If Cartman had thought they were cursed before, now he knows that they are none other than the eyes of the devil himself. Looking into them—it’s like staring into magnets. They’re eyes that coax a yes out of your tongue even as everything inside you screams no. They’re tunnels of endless beseechment and limitless seduction, impervious to human resistance. It must be the reason why Chaos has so many loyal minions. All he probably has to do is bat his big sparkly eyes at them to gain their undying devotion. 

“Please come with me?” Chaos begs again, vibrating with excitement in his seat. “I’ve got the money, ruh-right here, in my pocket here! You won’t have to pay for a single thing.” 

“Money’s not the fucking problem, Chaos! There’s nothing in this faggy dump I’d spend a dime on, anyway!” Yet, even as the words leave his mouth, Cartman finds himself pulling away from the sidewalk to find a proper parking spot. 

“Oh thank you, thank you Coon!” Chaos whoops. 

_This guy is a master of manipulation,_ Cartman thinks as he reluctantly removes his own Coon mask. _No wonder Chaos is such an effective supervillain. No wonder Mysterion wants him on our side so badly. No wonder I’m about to WILLINGLY visit the faggiest attraction I’ve ever seen in my whole fucking life, with a fucking wanted criminal, on Christmas Eve._

But as Chaos laughs and cheers delightedly beside him, Cartman thinks that spending a few more hours listening to Chaos’s stupid Southern accent won’t be so bad after all.

_They warned me Satan would be attractive._

* * *

Cartman learns a lot in the next few hours.

He learns that Chaos eats ice cream  _ really _ fucking slowly. Cartman had downed his own mint-chocolate ice cream, cone and all, in less than five minutes, while Chaos, who’d ordered a gross-looking eggnog-flavored one, spends half an hour savoring the frozen treat lick by lick.

“Stop giving your ice cream cunnilingus and eat it before it fucking melts!” Cartman had barked at the villain, worried that the ice cream would start dripping onto the sleeves of his jacket. 

“What’s cuh—c-cunnilingus?” Chaos had asked loudly, much to the displeasure of nearby passersby. The blank look on Chaos’s face told Cartman that he  _ really _ didn’t fucking know.

_ Not a virgin, huh _ ?

Cartman learns that Chaos likes Christmas ornaments, but only if they’re made of glass—apparently, plastic or any other materials are less than trash in the oh-so-great Chaos’s opinion. Chaos ends up buying a small box of no less than twenty glass ornaments. 

Cartman really wants to ask him what’s a guy who burned down South Park’s largest tree—as well as all its couple thousand decorations—to do with almost two dozen Christmas tree ornaments. But they’re in public, where they can’t really talk about hero/villain stuff. So Cartman keeps his mouth shut on that matter and settles for mocking Chaos for his shitty taste.

Cartman learns that Chaos likes pine-scented candles.

“Mom used to always light these during the holidays,” Chaos tells him while paying for several new candles. “This scent is so nostalgic for me.”

“I bet the scent of your mom’s wet cunt also makes you nostalgic,” Cartman sneers. “Too bad they don’t make candles in that flavor.”

“I-I dunno, C—uh.“ Chaos nearly acknowledges Cartman as the Coon, but thankfully stops himself. “It’d be mighty, mighty weird, i-if they did. But I guess we’ll never know without askin’—“

Cartman has to physically restrain Chaos from  _ actually _ posing the question to the mortified shopkeeper, who’d overheard the entire conversation. Privately, though, Cartman wonders where Chaos plans to light his new candles. In the Chaos lair, wherever it is? In his own home? Does a fucked-up guy like Chaos even  _ have _ a home?

Cartman learns that Chaos likes Santa Claus. 

There’s a photo op booth where kids can line up to take a picture with Santa. Chaos flounces right into the queue, oblivious, or perhaps uncaring, as adults and children around him all snicker at him for being a grown man so enthusiastic about “meeting” the fictional jolly old man. Cartman somehow feels affronted by their behavior, even though he’d usually be the first to laugh at someone behaving as childishly as Chaos. 

_ Who do they think they are, making fun of Professor Chaos like that?  _ Cartman thinks.  _ Don’t they know that this dude could fuck them all up in the blink of an eye?  _ But no, of course they have no fucking idea what this endearingly airheaded blue-eyed blondie is capable of. Maybe, beneath the smiley facade, Chaos is already plotting their bloody comeuppance. The idea brings Cartman more satisfaction than it should. 

Cartman adamantly refuses to even go  _ near _ the accursed Santa booth (because he’s not a lame-ass faggot, but also because he’s pretty sure that underneath the red hat and fake white beard is his old elementary school teacher Herbert Garrison. He has no idea how Mr. Garrison landed a gig being Santa Claus in a Christmas market, but knowing Mr. Garrison, it’s nothing good. 

Even though it’s extremely stupid, Cartman can’t help but watch as Chaos waits in line. He tells himself that he’s doing it to keep Chaos in check, and not because he’s  _ interested _ in the villain or anything dumb like that. He has to make sure that Chaos doesn’t actually go ham on these civilian losers. At the end of the day, Cartman is still  _ the _ Coon. 

He cringes when he sees Chaos climbing onto Garrison-Claus’s lap. Cringes even more when he sees Garrison putting his hand on Chaos’s back; even though Garrison’s hand is in a respectable position and he isn’t doing anything inappropriate (for once), it still looks  _ dirty _ somehow and Cartman finds the whole spectacle incredibly difficult to watch. 

But then Cartman finds his eyebrows traveling closer and closer to his hairline when he sees Chaos lean close and whisper something into Garrison’s ear. And then Garrison actually says something back. Cartman can’t hear their conversation from his distance, but he can tell that Garrison’s face is starting to turn red underneath the fake beard. 

And then the father of three rowdy children yells at Chaos from the line to hurry the fuck up and let other people have their turn, and Chaos flounces away from the booth and bouncily as he had gone. 

“What the fuck did you say to him?” Cartman asks as soon as Chaos has rejoined him. 

Chaos looks around and smiles maniacally. “Can’t tell you,” he says, “too many people around.”

Cartman finds that there are now so many things he wants to ask Chaos privately that he really fucking wishes they were in a private place, just the two of them.

Finally, Cartman learns that Chaos is fucking  _ loaded _ . 

He’d raised a few eyebrows by the way Chaos spent money buying useless shit in the market as flippantly as he kills Mysterion. But Cartman hadn’t thought any further of it. Maybe Chaos’s mom gives him an allowance after he fucks her or something.

But then they are flagged down by a woman at a booth set up by a charitable organization. “Hello, sir,” she addresses Chaos, who just happens to be closer to her. “Would you and your boyfriend like to make a donation to help kids in need today?”

Cartman and Chaos both start, turn to each other with alarmed eyes, then swivel to face the lady as one. 

Cartman opens his mouth several times, but no sound comes out. He can’t decide which part of the bitch woman’s outrageous question to address first: the part where she’d assumed he might want to give away his precious money to some asshole welfare worms, the part where she’d assumed he was a faggot, and particularly the part where she’d assumed that he was a faggot who’d go out with someone like the stupid, googly-eyed twink like Professor Chaos. But, judging by the shadow of apprehension that falls over her face, she takes notice of the rage that might as well be billowing out of Cartman’s ears in black plumes of smoke.

But Chaos beats Cartman to the chase, his surprised expression falling away far too quickly. “It’s so nuh-nice, what you’re, um, doin’ here,” he laughs. “Yes, I’d love to contribute what I can.”

And without skipping a beat, Chaos fishes through his pants pocket and pulls out  _ ten crisp one-hundred-dollar bills. _

The woman’s eyes goggle with glee at the same time that Cartman cries disbelievingly, “ _ Dude _ !”

“Oh thank you, thank you sir!” the woman cries ecstatically, her fear of Cartman all but dissolved as she quickly takes the one thousand-dollar donation as though fearful that Chaos might change his mind. 

“This is nothin’, really,” Chaos replies, blushing. It’s mind-boggling how Chaos is capable of killing people with the very same hands that are selflessly giving away one-thousand fucking dollars to the needy, and somehow still not seem like a hypocrite. 

“That’s not nothing, you asshole! What the fuck, dude!” Cartman exclaims. One thousand fucking dollars in cash! He stares at it longingly.

“No, it really  _ isn’t _ nothing,” the woman agrees, her eyes daring to slide over to meet Cartman’s. “This could do so much good. Your boyfriend’s a good man, sir.”

Professor Chaos, a good man! Ridiculous! And—“He’s not my fucking—”

“Oh, don’t worry about him, m’lady,” Chaos interrupts smoothly. “He’s just mad that I didn’t give him any warning.”

“Oh, don’t stay mad at him,” the woman implores Cartman. “He did a good deed. Let him make it up to you.” And she has the gall to wink at him.

“Y-yeah!” Chaos quickly agrees. “I’ll totally make it up to you, C—uh, sweetheart. I’ll let you, um, put your wiener, in my mouth, for once.”

The woman and Chaos begin giggling together at Cartman’s expense. Cartman’s jaw drops. He, Eric Cartman, the ultimate troll, has just been utterly humiliated and out-trolled by Professor Chaos. 

“Go finger yourself!” Cartman snarls at the woman, before grabbing Chaos by the wrist and dragging him away.

Chaos has the gall to continue giggling, and follows Cartman without complaint. The market is getting more and more crowded as the sun climbs higher and higher into the sky, and Cartman searches for a few minutes before he finds a somewhat more secluded corner nest to an unpopular stall selling creepy-looking nutcrackers. 

“Words can’t fucking describe how much I hate you, you piece-of-shit nutsack,” Cartman hisses right into Chaos’s face, ignoring the electric heat that’s emanating from Chaos’s body like a furnace. 

“Aw, c’mon. What do you have against kids in need? A-and like I said, you didn’t have to spend any money at all. That all came from  _ my _ pocket, remember?” 

“I’m not fucking retarded, I  _ know _ that! And  _ you _ know that’s not what I’m talking about!” 

Chaos blinks too owlishly for it not to be deliberate. “It’s not?”

“Why the hell didn’t you blow that bitch off for making all those stupid—and might I mention, BUTT ASS-NAKED WRONG—assumptions? Why the hell did you—go  _ along _ with it!”

Chaos shrugs. “She was awfully nice, a-and I thought she was bein’ pretty cute, too. I couldn’t stand to let her down.”

“She was being a cunt, you stupid bitch! And you’re—”  _ a supervillain _ , Cartman wants to say, but he can’t say it out loud here—” _ you _ ! Letting people down has  _ got _ to be part of your job description, man.”

“Then why are you surprised that  _ you’re _ the one I decided to let down instead?” Chaos retorts. “I  _ am _ me, after all. Although I didn’t really ‘let you down’, uh, I-I don’t think. Think of it as a little revenge for all the times you called me a frickin’ virgin today. Wuh-which I’m not, no siree!”

Cartman is stopped short. “Okay, okay, so maybe your popsicle isn’t cherry-flavored like I thought,” Cartman concedes, because how the hell could a virgin pull off such a dick move? “But you didn’t have to make me out to be a fucking faggot. Why didn’t you shove your horny cock into that girl’s mouth, then, if you thought she was so cute? Which she wasn’t!”

“Yes she  _ was _ , but I only put my wiener inside beautiful people,” Chaos says matter-of-factly. “And she’s not nearly as beautiful as you are.”

These words would’ve sounded mocking if they hadn’t been spoken in Chaos’s bleedingly honest voice. Cartman suddenly has to deal with the fact that Chaos may have been perfectly sincere, and he really doesn’t know how to deal with that. 

“And what about that fucking donation?” Cartman blurts, quickly changing the subject. “Are you seriously telling me that you were jerking all that cash around in your pants that whole entire fucking time? Even when we were—fighting?”

“Yes,” Chaos replies, like it’s perfectly normal. “You’ve been with me the whole time since mornin’. Where else would the money have been the entire time?”

“And you decided to blow it off on some ungrateful assholes?  _ Dude _ !” Cartman wails. “Do you know how much better use you could’ve put that money? Where the hell did you even  _ get _ so much money?”

Chaos smiles mysteriously once again, then stands on his tiptoes to put his mouth to Cartman’s ear. “I’m a  _ supervillain _ ,” he whispers. “Where do you  _ think _ I got that money?”

Chaos quickly pulls away before Cartman has the chance to respond, leaving the side of Cartman’s face where the villain’s warm breath had ghosted feeling cold and empty. 

Cartman still longs for a private place where he can freely ask Chaos all of his burning questions without the fear of eavesdroppers, but if being in public means that the electric blond will lean in so close to him and whisper secrets meant for his ears only…

Okay, maybe that’s not so bad.

* * *

If you hacked into Cartman’s heart with a chainsaw and dissected the remains, you might find a single bloody sinew in there that was the part of him that had actually  _ enjoyed _ his time spent at the faggy Christmas market. And within that twisted strand would be the cell that knew that Chaos’s presence had been responsible for that enjoyment. It’s doubtful Cartman would’ve enjoyed the holiday-themed spectacle on his own, and that’s not just his pride speaking. But there’d been so much wondrous, nostalgic joy in the way Chaos interacted with the world that Cartman couldn’t help but take a secondhand dose of it. 

But of course, Christmas and Cartman have never coexisted well in all the years of his existence, and he’d been foolish to expect this year to turn out any differently. 

It all begins to snowball into a disaster when Chaos suddenly gets the  _ fabulous _ (note the sarcasm) idea to go ice-skating. It’s nearing noon by that time, and the market’s only getting busier and busier, and Chaos wants to take a whirl on the ice before it gets too crowded.

“Why the fuck do you want to skate so badly? Did your precious mom used to let you suck her milk jugs on the ice or something?” Cartman asks only half-sarcastically.

Chaos proves yet again that he has no concept of sarcasm by taking the question seriously. “No, my dad, actually,” he says quietly, a hint of a scowl between his eyebrows. “Mom was too scared to ride on blades.”

Cartman is surprised to hear about Chaos’s father, whom the villain hasn’t mentioned until now. Cartman had sort of been assuming that Chaos had been raised by a single mother like himself, and it fills with him with an odd sort of disappointment to learn that that might not be the case after all.

Chaos tries to coax Cartman into going skating with him, but not even his sparkly aquamarine eyes can convince the brunet to make a fool of himself by twirling around Stark’s Pond like some ice ballerina.

And so Chaos ends up dumping all of his purchases in Cartman’s arms. “Be careful not to damage my ornaments!” the villain had called over his shoulder as he ran off to rent a pair of skates. 

Disgruntled, Cartman scares off two kids who were sitting on a bench overlooking the ice rink and takes their spot. “I can’t believe that asshole would just leave me with his shit and fuck me over like this,” he grumbles under his breath. “I should just leave now, sell his shit on Amazon or something.”

In fact, why  _ doesn’t _ he? Now that Chaos isn’t right beside him, Cartman is forced to ask himself  _ why _ , exactly, he’s stayed by the villain’s side throughout this extraordinarily bizarre day. He’d told himself it was to keep the supervillain in check, but instead he finds himself submitting to Chaos’s quirky whims, allowing himself to be humiliated by the infuriating blond. This isn’t his fucking obligation! In fact, as a superhero, he  _ is _ under obligation to take Chaos into custody, which he hasn’t done. 

Cartman watches as Chaos zips around on the ice, white skin and blond hair glittering like diamonds and gold underneath the sun. Chaos does a gravity-defying leap into the air, and Cartman can’t even find it in himself to be surprised at the fact that Chaos is apparently a really fucking good skater. He’s already been surprised too many times today. 

_ I bet all of this is just another one of his ploys,  _ Cartman thinks to himself.  _ He  _ is _ a master of manipulation, after all _ .  _ But the Coon can’t allow himself to be tricked so easily. As soon as he gets back here I’m taking him straight to headquarters. I’ll put a fucking blindfold on him if I have to. No more sparkly eyes, no more bullshit.  _

Just as Cartman makes his resolution, he sees it happens. A group of rowdy college-age kids skate deliberately into Chaos, pushing him over in the process. Chaos lands hard on his injured side, and Cartman can hear the pained yelp even from his distance. 

Their mean-spirited laughter cuts through the winter air like knives, and yet they do not stop there. When Chaos attempts to push himself back up, the leader of the group spitefully kicks him back down. Then they all take turns shouting derogatory things at their victim. 

They are too far away for Cartman to hear exactly what they’re saying, but the words “retard” and “faggot” are definitely discernible.

And Cartman’s not the only one. All around Stark’s Pond, people are beginning to stop to look at the commotion. Pity and fear are the most common expressions on their faces; some people are even trying to slip quietly away from the trouble. But there are also those who are watching with rapt attention and even amusement. 

Not one of them steps forward to help the kid.

Cartman has no idea what beef the bullies have with Chaos. He seriously doubts that they are actually aware of their victim’s superhero identity; they wouldn’t have such audacity if they did. Perhaps there’s no good reason for their abuse; perhaps they simply enjoy being complete shitbags but are too cowardly to beat up anyone their own size. After all, Chaos, rather ironically, looks completely harmless and defenseless without his helmet and costume. It occurs to Cartman that this is probably a big part of the reason why no one has yet managed to uncover Chaos’s true identity. Everyone’s been looking for a big bad aggressor, not a skinny, helpless victim. Chaos seems to break every stereotype associated with evil people. 

Once upon a time, Cartman might’ve been eagerly egging the violence on. But now, he feels the same indignance he felt when Chaos was being snickered at by oblivious folk, only this time it’s amplified ten times. 

Cartman stands up, prepared to intervene, when he suddenly notices the look on Chaos’s face. Aside from his initial pained outcry, the villain has fallen unusually quiet, his face kept carefully blank. He doesn’t even flinch when one of his attackers aims another kick at his side.

It’s completely unsettling and completely wrong. Cartman has spent enough time with Chaos to know that the blond man is a fundamentally expressive man, made of with lightning, thunder, and pure passion—not some stoic Craig Tucker doppelganger. 

But then Cartman begins to doubt himself. Who’s to say that this expressionless statue isn’t the  _ true _ face of Chaos? That what Cartman’s seen so far hasn’t just been a facade—Chaos’s attempt to play him for a fool, that fucking  _ worked _ ? Honestly,  _ is _ there even a true face of Chaos? 

However, Cartman’s doubts are put to rest when he takes a closer look at Chaos’s eyes, and sees the time bomb ticking within them. Gone are the shimmering aquamarine pools of hope and happiness: they have been replaced with eyes reddened with bloodlust and shadowed with the darkness of ashes, the eyes that looked upon Mysterion with so much hate. Lunacy and madness grow within them with every passing second. There’s nothing expressionless about them at all, but that’s suddenly not such a good thing.

Chaos’s attacker has just lifted his foot to kick him again when it happens. A giant bolt of lightning descends from what seems like nowhere and crashes into the surface of the frozen lake with a thunderous  _ CRRRRRACK _ ! It is so bright that Cartman finds himself blinded for several moments. When his vision returns, with dark spots still dancing in the corners of it, it’s like the world has cracked open in the few seconds that he was blind. The force of the lightning’s impact has caused the ice atop Stark’s Pond to shatter into dozens of fragments, and for a thick shroud of condensation to hang ominously in the air. The scene reminds Cartman a bit of those photographs showing Polar bears stranded on melting ice platforms in the North Pole. Except instead of Polar bears, it’s  _ people _ who are stranded: some of them have already fallen off of the ice and into the freezing water, where they’re bound to die of hypothermia if not rescued soon. 

Everywhere, people are screaming and running around. It is, for lack of a better word, pure Chaos. “I don’t see my son!” cries one woman. “He was on the ice—what if he fell in? Oh, he can’t swim!”

“Don’t worry—help is on the way, I’ve called 911!” someone else yells in return.

_ Shit shit shit shit shit _ . The last thing Cartman needs is for the police sniffing in his tracks once again. He needs to find Chaos and get them out of there,  _ fast _ . He leaps onto the breaking ice, thankful that the fog is providing him cover, although everyone is so absorbed in their own fear that he doubts they’d notice him even there was no fog and he was dancing around naked.

Cartman is not afraid. He can feel the ice cracking underneath his feet with every step that he takes, but he’s confident that he can run faster than it can break. And if he really does fall into the water, it’ll be a fucking drag, but he’s an excellent swimmer and his raccoon-like constitution will protect him from the cold. 

He finds Chaos standing on his own little island of ice, surrounded by an unusually large amount of fog. As he draws nearer, Cartman realizes from the heavy thickness of the air that it’s actually steam: Chaos is still emitting so much heat from his body that he’s causing the ice and water to vaporize all around him. The villain seems unconcerned, though: his eyes are half-lidded with bliss as he watches the pandemonium erupt around him. 

“Yo, asshole!” Cartman hollers, but the villain doesn’t seem to notice him. He jumps onto Chaos’s ice platform, but it’s so narrow that it careens dangerously and he nearly slides off its slippery surface. He is saved when Chaos’s hand shoots out and grabs him.

“Hey, Coon,” Chaos greets. 

“Don’t fucking call me that!” Cartman hisses. “Neither of us are in costume right now. Do you  _ want _ people to find out who you are?”

“Oh, they’re too preoccupied with savin’ their own butts to pay much attention to our little chat, sweetheart,” Chaos reassures Cartman, and as of now, Chaos isn’t mistaken. Nobody is sparing them a second glance. 

“Don’t call me sweetheart either!”

Chaos shrugs. “Okay, honey.”

“URGH!”

Chaos eyes glitter at Cartman’s frustration. “Even if these fools  _ did _ notice, it wouldn’t really matter, anyway.” The blond’s expression darkens. “Chaos doesn’t leave witnesses at the crime scene.”

Cartman doesn’t need to ask to know what Chaos means. He wants to eliminate all these people,  _ permanently _ . “Aw, come on, dude!” Cartman whines. “Can’t you not be a pain the ass for one full assfucking day! If this your way of telling me that you’re not a psychopath, you are so seriously doing it wrong.”

Chaos’s nostrils flare. “You knew perfectly well that this is what I do, comin’ into this,  _ hero _ . Besides, I don’t have to prove anythin’ to you.” But doubt briefly flickers across Chaos’s face, as though, even after all this, he’s  _ still _ uncomfortable with the idea that Cartman thinks him a psychopath. “It’s not psychopathic if they fuckin’ deserve it, okay!”

“Look, I know all of these jerks are selfish losers who probably suck their own dicks, okay? And they shouldn’t have tried to beat you up, even if you  _ do _ look like a ridiculous fairy,” Cartman says gruffly. “But as much as I wish it were otherwise—because believe me, I despise them too—you can’t just  _ kill _ them and expect everything to turn out sunshine and rainbows again. They never were in the first place, because what did I tell you? This place is  _ hell _ .” Cartman swallows, feeling oddly more heroic than he ever has in all his years as the Coon. “You’re really busting my balls, here, Chaos, but I can’t let you do this.”

Unfortunately, Chaos doesn’t seem moved by these words. “There you heroes go again, pokin’ your noses into MY business,” he accuses bitterly.

Cartman sneers at him. “You still don’t get it, do you? I’m a hero, you’re a villain. Your business IS my business.”

This, for some reason, is the statement that appears to shake Chaos’s confidence the most. The villain tries to cover up his doubt with a watery laugh. “Fine, then,” he coughs. “What’re you gonna do, Mister Coon? Try to kill me and I’ll make you swallow lightning. I swear I’ll do it, even though it’ll hurt you real bad and make me sad.”

“Glad to hear you kind of have a heart after all, but I’m not going to try to kill you. I know you’d fuck me up, and besides, you still owe me a blowjob, remember? For that stupid useless donation you made.” Chaos looks bewildered, and Cartman grins crookedly. “I’m just gonna get us the fuck out of here.”

“No way! I’m not goin’ anywhere. I started this, now I have to watch this whole place melt down, Coon! Otherwise what’s the point?”

“There is no point! You’re just fucking insane! Do you even realize that the police are gonna be on their way here any minute? I don’t have my Coon gear to keep cover this time. If they get here before we get out of here, we are fucking fucked, you hear me?”

“The pussy police don’t fuckin’ scare me. Let them come.”

“Oh no. Oh no no no no no,” Cartman refuses vehemently. “You have already  _ faaaaar _ exceeded my douchebag-tolerance threshold today. If I have to deal  _ one _ more fucking officer I’m seriously. Like. Gonna have an aneurysm and fucking die.”

“ _ You  _ go, then!” Chaos screams. “Run away like you heroes always do!”

Cartman grits his teeth, swallowing the insult. “Not without you, I won’t,” he growls.

With an enraged roar, Chaos tries to shove Cartman away. He ends up jostling the ice so violently that it splits in half right underneath their feet, sending the both of them plummeting into the cold, cold lake.

“Oh,  _ bitch _ !” Cartman cries as he falls into the abyss. Although he’d been preparing for the possibility of falling, it does nothing to diminish the agony of frigid fire exploding through his veins from being submerged in the winter water. “Cold, cold, cold!”

Chaos doesn’t seem to be doing much better, coughing and spluttering as he flails his limbs. At least raccoons are anatomically durable to water and low temperatures. Cartman can’t imagine that a hot-blooded creature like Chaos would like the cold too much, and water and lightning  _ definitely _ don’t mix, regardless of temperature.

Taking advantage of Chaos’s moment of weakness, Cartman slings his arm around Chaos’s waist and swims toward the parking lot as fast as he can. The burden of Chaos’s body weight isn’t too much of a challenge since Chaos must be less than half of Cartman’s.

The villain protests the manhandling, screaming about he still has unfinished revenge to exact, but his fight is feeble and sluggish. Cartman is reminded had seemed unusually dispirited today even before getting wounded and dunked in cold water; he doubts the villain would be so easy to handle if he were at his prime. About halfway to dry land, Cartman hears someone shout, “Lightning! That was lightning, I tell you! Professor Chaos is here! Where did he even come from?”

Unaware that Professor Chaos has been, and still is, passing right under their noses. 

“Oh fuck, oh FUCK! We’re gonna die, Chaos is gonna kill us. I don’t wanna fucking die, man! Where’s Mysterion when you need him?”

The age-old jealousy of Mysterion rips through Cartman’s system again. Your precious  _ Mysterion is dead _ , he wants to tell them.  _ And why do you want  _ him _ when you have someone better, when you have the one and only goddamn Coon? _

But Cartman doesn’t say anything, because he has no intention of helping them today. His throat burns with his own silence, but there’s only one soul he’s trying to save here and it’s not any of them. 

It’s when they’ve nearly arrived at shore that police sirens begin blaring for the second goddamn time in one day. Cartman knows they have to get out of there before the police close in and secure the perimeter of Stark’s Pond to prevent people from coming in—or getting out. It’s a good thing that so many people are leaving at the same time, trying to escape Professor Chaos’s wrath, so the fact that he and Chaos are fleeing the scene doesn’t stand out. Still, they don’t have much time left.

Cartman has never loved solid ground as much as the moment when he finally throws himself upon the shore. He turns around and drags Chaos up with him. The villain, soaking and waterlogged as he is, is much heavier on land than he was in the water. He’s no longer struggling as much, which makes Cartman’s life much easier. His 

“Oh my god!” screams a familiar voice. “Your boyfriend! He’s bleeding!”

Cartman looks up to find the same lady from the charity booth leaning over the both of them.

“The fuck! Why are you still here?” Cartman screeches. “You weren’t even on the fucking ice to begin with, you stupid woman! Fucking scram! Chaos could, uh, still be here!”

The actual Chaos mumbles something, but, fortunately, his face is buried in the snow and his words are unintelligible. He’s not passed not, but not completely conscious either. 

“I need to help wherever I can!” the stupid woman insists, unbothered by Cartman’s insults (much to his chagrin). “Your boyfriend is bleeding!”

“Get out of here, you cunt!” Cartman screams back. She’s right, though. Red is slowly seeping from the side of Chaos’s torso, through Cartman’s jacket and onto the pure white snow. All the activity must have aggravated his injury and caused it to reopen. “Aw, you bitch!” Cartman yells at Chaos, who continues mumbling deliriously. “Your blood’s getting all over my jacket! Now I’m gonna have to burn it or something! Bitch!”

Wasting no time, Cartman slings Chaos over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and quickly kicks all of the snow tainted with Chaos’s blood into the lake. On the off chance that the police do their jobs correctly, they might collect the villain’s blood as evidence and DNA-test the shit out of it to figure out his civilian identity. And even though Cartman himself is burning to know that information, he’d prefer to find out on his own terms rather than on the asshole police’s.

Cartman does his best to ward off the charity lady’s unwelcome attention as he hauls Chaos’s ass back to his car. 

“He needs medical attention,” she says frantically as Cartman stuffs Chaos into the passenger seat, “he needs help! The ambulances should be on their way by now. Maybe we should just keep him stable—”

“This is NOT your problem, lady! If I want him to bleed the fuck out in my fucking car, then that is MY fucking decision!”

“But—”

“Aren’t there other sick assholes who don’t want you hovering around them like a stupid cunt!”

Her lips tighten into an unhappy line. Cartman rolls his eyes.  _ Is this seriously the time? Jesus Christ, women _ . “Look, your boyfriend may be sweet but you’ve been nothing but rude to me since the moment I met you. I don’t want it on my conscience that something happens to him because of his irresponsible abusive boyfriend and I did nothing to stop you!”

“Fuck your conscience! And—wait, did you just call  _ me _ the abusive one? You think he’s a good guy just because he tossed a couple of bucks in your skanky face? You don’t even  _ know _ him! He brought this on himself!”

“That’s  _ exactly _ what an abuser would say!”

The fire in Cartman’s gut is threatening to rage into an inferno by this point, but the sound of police sirens drawing nearer reminds him that he really doesn’t have the time to shove his wrath up this bitch’s sandy vagina. “Look,” he says through his gritted teeth, willing out all of his patience out of all his nonexistent places, “I have a friend who—uh—works in a hospital, okay? He’s a fucking nurse. Which is gay as shit, I know, but don’t laugh at him, he’s like, super sensitive. But like, he’ll know what to do. Besides, this is hardly the worst—” he reaches down and roughly ruffles Chaos’s head—”this little twink has ever been through. He’ll be fucking fine.” 

Finally,  _ finally _ , the woman gives him a tight nod, not one of approval but of begrudging concession. Cartman clambers into the driver’s seat, considering the lie he’d fed to her. Well, not  _ completely _ a lie—Tweek isn’t a nurse yet, but he’s  _ training _ to be one (which is indeed gay as shit) and just as qualified from all the experience he’s racked up he’s had to patch up injured members of Coon & Friends. 

But there’s no way Cartman is bringing Professor fucking Chaos to Tweek. Even if he withheld the villain’s identity from Tweek, the spazzy hero would want to know why the coldhearted Cartman would bring an injured stranger to him for help. Cartman can’t allow his coldhearted reputation to be tarnished like that. Besides, if Cartman remembers correctly, Tweek is spending his Christmas with Craig, and Craig is much more suspicious of Cartman than Tweek. Out of everyone in Coon & Friends, Craig, with the possible exception of Wendy, loathes Cartman the most, and is always waiting for the raccoonish hero to slip up and betray them. 

Cartman will just have to hope that he’s picked up enough second hand knowledge to manage on his own. 

“You’re a real shitload of trouble, you know that, Chaos?” Cartman grumbles as he revs the engine. He wonders who’s the poor fool who normally has to patch up Chaos’s injuries after ill-advised excursions like these. A minion with healing abilities, maybe? After all, it’s true that Chaos has been through worse than this. Like that time the Human Kite managed to knock Chaos out of the air mid-flight. Cartman still isn’t sure how Chaos recovered from that one. Or all those fights with Mysterion, many of which Mysterion himself did not survive. 

Landing a blow on Chaos—injuring him, nearly killing him—had always been considered a victory worthy of celebration with Coon & Friends. Cartman had never stopped to wonder what those occasions looked like on Chaos’s side. Did Chaos look as pale and skinny and deathly as he does now, a mere  _ kid _ , hurting and shivering in the passenger of Cartman’s car? 

Shivering—right.  _ Not everyone has awesome raccoon metabolism _ . Cartman turns the heat up in his car. “You should get out of those fucking clothes if you don’t wanna freeze,” he warns Chaos. 

But Chaos doesn’t seem to hear him. Even as his body is wracked with involuntary tremors from the cold with blood seeping from his injury, he has a silly smile on his face as he looks out the window with unfocused eyes. People appear to be running around in every direction; there are still people stuck in the water, waving their arms around screaming for help. And then there are those who are lying on the ground or sinking into the freezing water, their bodies a little bit too still. Who knows how many of  _ those _ the police will find. 

It’s terrible. It’s a picture of suffering and death. Cartman tries his hardest to feel something. Sadness, shock, horror, anger—those are all the things he  _ should _ be feeling, especially since he’s a hero and all that. But none of those feelings come to him. Happiness, satisfaction, vindication—none of  _ those _ feelings come to him either. In fact, Cartman is feeling a lot calmer than the whole situation warrants. To be completely honest, he finds himself unable to focus too well on the situation outside at all. His attention keeps getting drawn away from the window to the blond beside him, and when he looks at Chaos it isn’t anger or sadness or anger or happiness that he feels at all. What he feels is a little bit warm and fuzzy—a bit queasy, too, but not in the bad way that makes him want to throw up. He doesn’t know  _ what _ this feeling is, because he’s never felt it before. 

“It’s so c-c-chaotic,” Chaos whispers with chattering teeth. Unlike Cartman, the blond is very clearly having an intense emotional reaction to the goings-on outside. 

“No shit, Sherlock.”

“My n-name’s not Sh-sh-sherlock—”

“No, it’s Stupid Dumbass Cunt, because you are S-T-U-P-I-D.”

Chaos is too distracted to be offended, and Cartman does his best to weave his way around all the other cars in the parking lot. “I d-did that. I d-d-did that, Coon! They’re so goshdarned suh-scared of me. I-I-I’m the one makin’ ‘em scream s-so fuckin’ loud. Little old m-me!”

“Uh-huh,” Cartman answers flatly, unimpressed. The weird fuzzy feeling is still present in his stomach, but exasperation is drowning it away.

“It’s s-so beautiful. Aren’t you proud of me?”

“Uh, if you’re expecting me to congratulate you and suck your ass for killing a bunch of motherfuckers, then you are definitely mistaking me for your butt-buddy General Disarray.” They’re only a few cars away from the parking lot exit by now. Cartman holds his breath and wills the car in front of him to go faster. 

Chaos starts slightly in response to the name of his second-in-command. He starts knocking his fists together, although he’s still shaking so violently that his hands keep missing each other. “Ooh,” he sighs, “the General’s gonna be awful s-sore that he missed out on all the fun.” Then Chaos frowns. “Or m-maybe he’ll be sore at me. M-m-mister G-goody Two-Shoes Disarray  _ liiiiikes _ Christmas, but  _ ohhhhh _ no, little bad Butters had to go fuckin’ things up like always.”

Butters?

Cartman feels a little jolt that isn’t unlike Chaos’s electricity; however, one look at the scowling villain confirms that Chaos isn’t using his powers at the moment. It’s the name  _ Butters _ that elicited Cartman’s reaction. He doesn’t know anybody named Butters (he’d fucking  _ know _ if he had an acquaintance with such a laughably faggy moniker) yet there’s something hauntingly familiar about the name. “I don’t know what you fucking want from me,” Cartman says, trying to keep the fact that his heart is pounding a mile a minute out of his voice. Chaos doesn’t seem to realize that he’d actually let slip his own name, and Cartman would like to keep it that way. “I already told you that  _ I _ hate Christmas.”

“And yet you’re t-tyrin’ to take me away from this p-p-place,” Chaos glares. “You won’t let me finish what I started!” 

“Are you even  _ listening _ to yourself?” Cartman growls. “If  _ you _ hated Christmas that much you wouldn’t’ve wanted to come here in the first place!” Chaos ignores him, instead clawing at the car door and trying to let himself out. “Hey, what are you—OW!”

Cartman had reached over to try to pry Chaos away from the door, and Chaos had responded by zapping him with a tiny amount of electricity. 

“They’re supposed to be lookin’ at me,” Chaos spits, sounding equal parts sad and desperate. “They have to know that they’re in pain because of  _ me _ , Coon! Don’t you fuckin’ get it? Otherwise they’ll have suffered for nothin’. I’m not a fuckin’ weakling, I don’t fuckin’ run away. I’m not a fuckin’ hero.” 

Hadn’t Chaos said something similar? About heroes and running away? “We’re not fucking running away, we’re making a strategic retreat, dumbass! God, don’t you ever fucking learn? Just this morning you were crying like a pussy over  _ one _ fuckin’ hobo, and it hasn’t even been twenty-four hours and you’re about to do it all over again? That’s just pathetic.”

“This is different. This wouldn’t’ve been an accident. This is different!” Chaos cries, pounding on the window weakly. The effort is futile, because the Coonmobile’s windows are bulletproof. “Besides, aren’t  _ you _ the one who told me to go fuck shit up? What is this if it ain’t fuckin’ shit up, Coon?”

“I—I—” Cartman flounders, realizing that Chaos is right. But he hadn’t meant to get dragged into Chaos’s shenanigans like  _ this _ , either. Thoughtlessly, he blusters, “What else was I supposed to say, when you were having your pussy tantrum all over me? I just said that to make you, to make you feel better.”

A myriad of emotions flashes through Chaos’s eyes so quickly that Cartman has no chance of following them. He thinks he catches a flash of surprise, followed by gratitude and hurt—but it’s all too fast for him to process what it means. 

“If you really wanna make me feel better,” Chaos says dangerously, “you’ll let me out of the car right. Fuckin’.  _ Now _ .”

Chaos holds up a fist that crackles loudly with electricity. His aquamarine eyes seem to glow, and all traces of the vulnerable kid Cartman had comforted are gone. 

“If you shoot off lightning in here,” Cartman says, gesturing wildly at the metal-accented interior of his car, “you’ll blow both of us up!” But Chaos doesn’t flinch.  _ He’s really gonna do it _ , he thinks in panic. Chaos looks as crazed as he did this morning, chasing Cartman around central South Park and trying to kill him. 

“I know,” Chaos replies calmly.

“Are you fucking  _ crazy _ ?” Cartman yells.

“I’m Professor  _ Chaos _ , sweetheart. Of course I’m fuckin’ crazy!”

_ Ain’t that the truth! _ Sensing that he has to do  _ something _ before Chaos blows them both into the netherworld that exists underneath the hell that is mortal Earth, Cartman quickly extends his Coon claws and pins Chaos’s sleeve to the seat cushion. The black leather sizzles and smokes when Chaos’s fist makes contact with it. Chaos cries out in surprise—not pain, because Cartman had been careful not to puncture Chaos’s flesh with his claws. Then Cartman reaches for the closest hard object he can find—which happens to be Chaos’s metal helmet—and bashes it over the top of Chaos’s head. The villain’s big blue eyes roll into the back of his head, reminding Cartman of marbles and the marble races he used to have as a kid with Stan, Kyle, and Kenny during their pre-Internet playdates. Cartman quickly throws the helmet onto the car floor as Chaos slumps over, unconscious. He steps on the gas pedal as hard as he can without colliding with the red Volkswagen in front of him. He holds his breath as several police cars pass right by him, heading in the direction of the commotion at Stark’s Pond. If Cartman’s car gets stopped, he knows he’s fucked. There’s no way he can explain away a bleeding, unconscious, electric blond  _ and _ Chaos’s helmet while trying to make a getaway from the scene of a Chaos crime. 

But the police don’t stop him. They blare their way into the parking lot and stop the Green Ford just three vehicles behind Cartman’s Coonmobile. Officers begin swarming out and yelling orders for everyone behind the Green Ford to stay put—”this is crime scene and we don’t want anyone disturbing the evidence” and all that bullshit.

But they don’t stop Cartman. 

As Cartman continues driving away, he feels something bubbling inside his chest. He isn’t sure whether it’s tears or laughter. He quickly lets out a sharp bark of laughter before his body can betray him and start crying like a pussy: he’s not a lame-ass faggot, after all. He isn’t even sure why he would want to cry at all. 

Aside from the fact that it’s Christmas Eve, and he’d thought he’d be spending it alone, but here he is with the most unlikely company in all of South Park. Aside from the fact that he’s supposed to be a hero but has violated basically every hero code in existence by knowingly harboring one of the most dangerous villains all by his own free will. Aside from the fact that the bastard Mysterion had been right about him after all: the Coon  _ does _ have some kind of weird, fucked-up connection with Chaos even though they fight on different sides of the law. Aside from the fact that Cartman has somehow found himself  _ liking _ that connection instead of dismissing it, or resenting it. Aside from the fact that Chaos, whether it’s the immature bratty childlike version of him or the lightning-wielding murderous psychopath side of him, is a nonstop chatterbox, but now that he’s been unconscious he’s so quiet that it almost reminds Cartman of the unnatural stillness of Mysterion’s corpse. Cartman had forgotten how much he hated silence. It was one of the reasons why he’d always run his mouth off like a brat when he was a kid, always making fun of his friends, always fucking around with them...they never stayed quiet when he did shit like that.

And of course, the most important fact of all: the fact that for the first time ever, Chaos is totally and completely at Cartman’s mercy. As long as the two of them had remained conscious, it had been a push-and-pull battle between the two of them, whether it be a battle of words, wills, or their actual fucking superpowers. And even though one of them sometimes gained leverage over the other, there had never really been a clear victor. Their combined efforts were only good enough to bring them to a stalemate. Or maybe neither of them had been willing to put in enough effort to beat the other and end their flirtatious little war for good.

But Chaos’s insanity had forced Cartman’s hand. Cartman hadn’t  _ wanted _ to knock Chaos out; Chaos had  _ made _ him do it. Because, as he’d said before and will say again, Cartman doesn’t want to die. He’d even been willing to suck Chaos’s dick to get out of dying. 

Cartman is the winner, whether he wants to be or not. Winning, and power, were all Cartman had ever wanted, ever since he could walk and talk. They were like drugs to Cartman: they filled him with a kind of electric pleasure, like pure ecstasy in his veins. Now, with an unconscious Professor Chaos riding around in his passenger seat like nothing, Cartman is wielding more power than ever in his entire life and career. In his hands he holds the fate of South Park—perhaps all of Colorado, considering the rapidity with which Chaos’s power and influence is escalating. It should be invigorating, but instead it feels like being burned by a fire he’d wandered too close to. The rush of ecstasy is now a sensory overload. Not unlike the sensation of being struck by lightning.  _ Figures _ .

“E- _ NOUGH _ !” Cartman shouts. He’s only screaming at himself, of course, because Chaos is all but dead to the world right now. And here Cartman had thought that everything would be easier,  _ clearer _ , for him, if Chaos’s devilish blue eyes were shielded from sight. He should’ve known that a demonspawn like Chaos wouldn’t need to be awake to still possess that same seductive influence. All of the weird feelings coursing through Cartman’s body are messing with his head; all semblance of calmness is now gone. He wants—no, he doesn’t know  _ what _ he wants. He can’t  _ think _ . He can’t remember how he used to function when Professor Chaos wasn’t around, talking his ear off and exasperating him with his fagginess. It’s ironic how the blond villain represents everything that is disorderly to the outside world, and yet had somehow brought equilibrium to Cartman’s life. Hadn’t Cartman been feeling off balance those few hours before he met Chaos this morning, so restless that he couldn’t stay put in his own house? Or maybe he’d been off-kilter ever since Clyde tried to talk him into spending Christmas with the family. Maybe he’s been feeling disturbed ever since Halloween ended and the prospect of the hated winter holidays drew nearer. Maybe he hasn’t really actually yet recovered from his mother’s marriage to Roger Donovan—what Cartman can’t help but feel is betrayal from his one beloved family member and true ally in the world. Or maybe Cartman’s lack of inner peace stems from the other Coon & Friends heroes’ nearly-successful mutiny a year-and-a-half ago. Cartman hates every single one of their stupid faces so,  _ so _ much—but they’re still the closest things he has to friends, dammit! How could they betray him like that?

But even before that treacherous incident, Cartman cannot recall ever being a  _ tranquil _ person. He’d always been impulsive and obscene and selfish and abnormal and— _ unsatisfied _ . What if his problems had started much earlier, from those traumatic, agonizing, dreaded Christmases of his youth—

  1. _NO_. Cartman mentally shuts down the thought with such violence that it causes him to physically slam his foot down on the gas pedal with equal violence. He doesn’t even realize what he’s doing until the sound of car horn rips through his thoughts. He looks up sharply to find that he’s careening at over sixty miles per hour on a local road, and at this rate he’s going to crash into the tail end of the car in front of him—



But Cartman can’t slam his brakes  _ now _ —Chaos doesn’t have a seatbelt on and if he does, the unconscious blond is just gonna fly straight out of the windshield—!

Fortunately, the car in front of him swerves out of the way just in time, honking furiously at him all the while. Cartman quickly presses a button on the inside of his console that causes several synthetic straps to shoot out of the seat cushion right above Chaos’s slumped shoulder blades and wrap themselves tightly around the villain’s torso. They’re not seatbelts, but rather an emergency restraint system designed to hold obstinate prisoners in place. But Cartman supposes he can’t afford to picky right now; so long as the harnesses prevent his passenger from flying the fuck out of his car, he won’t complain.

“Dammit, Chaos,” Cartman exhales shakily as he finally eases his speeding car to match the speed limit of South Park’s suburban residential roads. It’s a good thing most of the police are still occupied at Stark’s Pond, or else he’d  _ definitely _ have been pulled over for speeding. Of course, Chaos doesn’t respond.

_ This _ is why Cartman never thinks about those terrible Christmases of his childhood. Thinking about them makes him lose control. Cartman doesn’t like being out of control. And he refuses to acknowledge that those childhood incidents may have irreversibly fucked him up for life. They may have been the worst moments of his life, but they don’t control him. He  _ refuses _ to accept that. 

But if he can’t blame  _ that _ for the way he is, then what  _ can _ he blame, really? Maybe...maybe Eric Theodore Cartman was just born this way. Maybe the dirty South Park slut’s illegitimate son is only capable of living the way he was conceived: a  _ fucked up bastard _ . All his life, Cartman has felt awful and angry. His brief moments of triumph are always overshadowed by the underlying hatred he feels for the world. His relationships with others are always tainted by his innate desire to manipulate, to  _ hurt _ . In a way, he’s always felt like an incomplete human, and being an all-around asshole is the easiest way to fill in the emptiness.

But then he’d run into Professor Chaos this morning, and they’d argued and they’d fought like heroes and villains are supposed to do...but when Cartman had gotten Chaos pinned down underneath him, the villain had broken a cardinal rule by showing weakness to his enemy, by  _ crying _ . 

And Cartman had broken a cardinal rule by  _ comforting _ his enemy.

And Cartman hadn’t even questioned it. And for the rest of the day, as Chaos dragged him through a stupid Christmas market and a myriad of other activities he normally wouldn’t have been caught  _ dead _ engaging in, Cartman hadn’t even  _ fucking _ questioned it. He’d been so comfortable despite the bizarreness of the situation that he hadn’t realized…

...that for the first time since forever, Cartman had felt  _ whole _ . 

He’d looked into Chaos’s troubled visage and found someone just as troubled, just as broken, just as  _ abandoned _ as himself. And he hadn’t questioned it, because perhaps it was Fate that had arranged this unconventional meeting between the deadly Coon and the dangerous Professor Chaos. Just as Fate had cheated Cartman out of knowing Leopold Stotch that day on the front step of his porch.

Maybe Cartman and Chaos are both jagged-edged pieces of the puzzle that makes up society, unable to fit in anywhere without destabilizing the bigger picture. But perhaps, against all odds, Cartman and Chaos’s irregularly-serrated edges actually fit inside one another. Which is why Chaos’s silence now feels like a gaping wound, like a part of Cartman’s essence is...missing. 

_ This is where Jimmy would make one of his retarded jokes _ , Cartman thinks inappropriately.  _ You see, E-e-e-eric, once you know what it f-feels like for someone to be inside you, you can never stop b-b—being a hungry little butt sex puppy _ . 

“Fuck you, Jimmy, you crippled pervert asshole,” Cartman grumbles, as though all of this is Jimmy’s fault.

Cartman continues to be totally distracted from his own driving until he pulls up in front of a familiar mansion in an upscale neighborhood. It takes him a moment to realize that he’s subconsciously taken himself to the residence of none other than Token Black himself. 

And underneath Token Black’s mansion is a secret bunker that is the Coon & Friends headquarters. And underneath  _ that _ is a corridor of cells, where the heroes keep their prisoners. Criminals with information that Dr. Timothy has yet to weed out of their minds. Villains too dangerous to be trusted to the police. Cartman doesn’t kid himself into thinking that those prisoners are treated well by his ilk. Just as Coon & Friends protects South Park in extreme ways, so too do they treat their captives. It’s simply too much to ask for a bunch of volatile young adults such as themselves to be content committing all kinds of selfless, dangerous deeds to keep the city safe, without having someplace—some _ one _ —on which to release their pent-up anger and frustrations. 

A bunch of bad guys to abuse without consequence? At first, the opportunity had seemed like a godsend. As time passed, however, Cartman quickly found himself bored with the occupants of the Coon & Friends dungeons. They were all too frightened and weakened to react to his verbal taunts and various humiliations the way he wanted them to, so in the end Cartman had mostly left them alone. Kyle, on the other hand, had surprised them all. Though the Jew had initially preached endlessly about the importance of treating their prisoners humanely, he ended up giving in to the temptation and turned out the most brutal out of the lot, regularly visiting the dungeons for “stress relief” that resulted in more than a few bloody noses and broken bones. Only Kenny, the poor asshole with the bleeding heart, had from beginning to end remained steadfast in his opposition to Coon & Friends’ practice of regularly imprisoning and mistreating their opponents. But even the almighty Mysterion hadn’t been able to sway his colleagues’ decision on this.

“I’m sorry, Mysterion, but at the end of the day the boys are only human,” Call Girl had told Mysterion in a guilty yet resolute tone. “I wish we didn’t need this, but...well. Anyway, they’re bad people, and it’s for the greater good, and it really can’t be worse than what Chaos does with his cronies.”

But she’d said that without really knowing what it  _ is _ Chaos does. And from the mouth of the man himself…

“ _ I’m a supervillain, not an evil slave-drivin’ corporate CEO or somethin’. All my boys—and, uh, gals—get days off _ .”

There’s a room at the farthest corner of the dungeons that has Professor Chaos’s name on it. Literally. Toolshed had constructed a neon sign reminiscent of Sin City’s  _ Welcome to Las Vegas _ sign that says  _ Professor Chaos, Welcome to Your Doom  _ as a joke, but the others decided to hang it over the cell door anyway as a sort of motivational poster for bringing down their greatest enemy someday. The cell is insulated on all four walls, ceiling, and floor with rubber twelve inches thick with the very intention of preventing Chaos from using his powers.

All Cartman has to do now is park his car, carry Chaos’s bony white ass through the secret entrance behind the mansion, ride the four-story elevator down to headquarters, and throw his captive into his doom cell. The prospect is so tempting that he can taste it on his tongue. He’ll have achieved what Mysterion himself has only dreamed of doing. He’ll have regained the respect of his fellow heroes. He will become their insurmountable leader once more. He will become South Park’s beacon of light. He will have glory and fame.

“Oh,  _ fuuuuuck _ ,” Cartman moans. “The hell is wrong with me?”

The universe decides to answer his question by having a uniformed man, followed by Token Black himself in all of his black asshole-ishness, walk out of the front door towards him. “Oh, goddammit,” Cartman mutters to himself. He’d forgotten that Token has like, a dozen douchebag bodyguards on constant lookout around his stupid rich millionaire property. 

Token walks up to the driver’s side of the car, his guard trailing behind him like a dumb dog. Cartman thanks the spirits that the car windows are tinted, making it impossible for outside observers to see inside. Cartman rolls down his window a teeny tiny sliver, leaving just enough room for Token to see his eyes. He can’t let Token know that he’s not alone in the car. Cartman has never been more relieved by the fact that Token’s powers don’t include sensory abilities like his own or Clyde’s, or a telepathic lie detector like Timmy’s. 

“Hey bro. Did you get my letter?” Token greets with faux cheer. It’s a code phrase Coon & Friends uses whenever one of them shows up at the Black residence unexpected.  _ Are you here on hero business _ ?

Cartman hesitates.  _ Yes, and I stopped by to discuss its contents with you _ . The answer is on the tip of his tongue, practically  _ begging _ to spoken. It’s a fuse that’s already been lit, and now it just wants to explode. Cartman’s amber gaze briefly flit away from Token’s dark, earthy eyes to look at Chaos’s pale, slumbering form. He is so close. So close!  _ Yes, and I stopped by to discuss its contents with you _ .  _ Yes, and I stopped by to discuss its contents with you. Yes, and I— _

“...No,” Cartman grinds out. “But I’ll check the mail when I get home.”

“Oh.” Token blinks. It’s clearly not the answer he expected. The Coon and Tupperware are forced to work together all the time, but Token and Cartman aren’t very close outside of the hero gig, since the latter’s ridiculous prejudices serve as an insurmountable barrier to any potential friendship they might have. “Well, is there anything I can do for you?”

“I…no. No there isn’t.”

“O…kay.” Token squints at Cartman, trying to make out his intentions, but it’s hard to tell when Cartman’s eyes are the only visible part of him. “Uh, could you maybe roll down the window a bit more? Talking to you like this is really weird—”

“ _ No _ !”

Token is momentarily silenced by Cartman’s severity. When he recovers, he sighs long-sufferingly. “Look, I don’t know why you came here today and considering who you are, I don’t think I wanna know, either. But I’m uh, kinda busy and if this is some kind of prank or something—”

“Merry Christmas,” Cartman blurts out.

This time, it takes much longer for Token to recover. His eyes appear to pop out of his head, the whites of his eyes contrasting painfully with his dark skin. “...Excuse me?” he finally says, his voice a semitone higher than normal.

“I said what I said!” Cartman snaps. “Are you that much of a black asshole that you’re gonna make me say it again?”

“Okay, okay, sheesh!” Token says placatingly. “Merry Christmas to you too, I guess. I just..never thought I’d hear you say that. I thought you hated Christmas—”

“I did. I  _ do _ ,” Cartman insists. And that much is true. He still despises this faggy holiday with every inch of his being, and part of the reason he’d bidden Token a merry Christmas was to throw the other hero off his tail of suspicion. 

And if another part of him is just feeling more generous than usual, then...then that’s totally irrelevant!

“Okay...okay,” Token says disbelievingly. “Uh...Cartman...you feeling okay, dude?”

“Honestly? I’m so fucking peachy, you wouldn’t even believe it, Token. I mean, I also feel like I may have swallowed a couple of shrooms—like, is this even real life, y’know? But yeah...totally peachy, bro.  _ Too _ fucking peachy.” 

Surprisingly, Token appears to relax at this. “ _ Ohhhhh _ ...so you’re high. And driving? Jesus Cartman, I’m disappointed in you.”

Cartman’s  _ not _ actually high, but he supposes it’s all right to let Token think that he is. It makes his weird behavior and unwillingness to roll down the window much easier to explain. “Yeah, yeah, get the fuck out of my face, douchebag. You’re not my mother, so don’t tell me what to fucking do.”

“I wasn’t planning to,” Token responds, but he looks more amused than offended. Then he scratches the back of his head sheepishly. “Ugh, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but, hmm, since you’re here already, Cartman—and high, no less—wanna come in? Have a drink, maybe? We haven’t really hung out since—well, we’ve never really hung out, actually—”

“I appreciate the sentiment, Tokie-boy, but I have no interest going inside your stupid house just so you can wave your inherited money in my face. Besides, I have...shit to do. Yeah. Gotta...gotta skedaddle now.  _ Yuuuuup _ .”

Token frowns, and for some reason that Cartman can’t fathom, actually looks a little disappointed. “You drove all the way out here just to—”

“See your sweet smile one last time before our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ makes two-thousand-and-fucking-twenty to his holy and eternal existence,” Cartman answers smoothly. 

There’s a pause before Token breaks into a hearty guffaw. “You’re a piece of work, Cartman, you know that?”

“Nothing I’ve never heard before,” Cartman answers dismissively. “Now if you’ll excuse me—”

“Wait, uh—Cartman. There’s something else.”

There’s an edge to Token’s voice that makes Cartman’s heart stutter. “...What?”

“Uh, Clyde—”

Cartman’s heart drops.

“Clyde told me tell you, if I saw you, which I didn’t think I would but here we are—Clyde asked me to tell you to call him,” Token says.

“Well you can tell Clyde to suck on this,” Cartman snaps, rolling down his window just a sliver more so that he can stick his big fat middle finger right out of it. 

“Yeah, and maybe you should at least make an effort to get along with your brother,” Token rebuffs, suddenly cold. 

“ _ He’s not my fucking—” _

“Yeah, and I’m also not your fucking pigeon, so maybe you can tell him yourself, man.”

Cartman’s only response is to roll his window all the way up, effectively shutting Token out. Cartman knows that there’s no way Token can see him through the tinted glass, but somehow Token still manages to stare exactly at the spot where Cartman’s eyes are and give a disappointed shake of his head. Then he turns around and walks back inside his big-ass house.

Cartman gives Token’s retreating figure another middle finger, then pulls out of the driveway. He glances at Chaos again. Aside from the fact that one is black and the other is whiter than a unicorn, Token and Chaos couldn’t be more different. Token is calm and grounded and honest. Chaos is crazy and—crazy. Just crazy.

“Fuck me for being an idiot, but I think I like  _ crazy _ more than _ black asshole _ ,” Cartman sighs at Chaos, who is predictably still unresponsive. “You know I totally lied back there just to save your ass, right? Christ, that is definitely going to come back and bite me in the butt someday, isn’t it?”

Yes, it definitely is. But today is not that day.

* * *

Cartman drives back to his own house, taking the long route so that he doesn’t have to pass by Stark’s Pond again. He carries Chaos inside and sets him down on the couch, next to the warm fireplace. The blond is still freezing cold to the touch, and the last thing Cartman wants is to have to haul out the old hacksaw for a homemade frostbite amputation. Then, as methodically as he can, but still unable to keep himself from blushing furiously, he cuts away Chaos’s wet clothes with a pair of scissors. 

Cartman had already seen Chaos bare-chested earlier that day, so at least he’s prepared for that. Now that he’s up close and personal, however, he notices that life has obviously not been kind to Chaos, if the scars crisscrossing the villain’s back, stomach, and arms are to be believed. Cartman has his own fair share of “permanent souvenirs” from his hero work, but Chaos has too many scars to be explained away by the danger of his profession. He looks like a survivor of some sadistic experiment. There’s also the dark purple splotches across several of Chaos’s ribs from where those bullying assholes at the ice kicked him. What the fuck, man? Is Chaos just some big bleeding magnet for injury or something, just like the way Kenny is a magnet for death?

Cartman tries not to linger on them for too long, though. There’s no doubt Chaos would disapprove of Cartman's perusal of his body if he were awake. On the other hand, Cartman wonders why he cares. Chaos is out cold with a concussion, for fuck’s sake. He could fuck him in the ass and the villain would still be none the wiser. But Chaos has already shown Cartman so much of his vulnerable side that it just feels  _ wrong _ to take more of it without permission. And Cartman still remembers the raw power of Chaos’s lightning, and how very close to death he felt when Chaos was at his heels...at the end of the day, the villain is still a force to be reckoned with, and Cartman can’t help but respect that. 

Chaos’s legs look so skinny and breakable that he could probably give supermodels a run for their money, but Cartman can’t find it in himself to be surprised by that anymore. Chaos’s feet are also still decked in rented ice skates, though Cartman doubts the people back at Stark’s Pond are too worried over a pair of stolen skates, considering what’s going on back there. Cartman tosses the skates aside along with Chaos’s drenched socks.

However, when Cartman finds himself face-to-face with a pair of Hello Kitty boxers…

“Fuck me,” he breathes. “Why do people even  _ make _ shit like this?” 

Chaos must have gone out his way to buy a pair of ridiculous underwear like this, because Cartman has certainly never seen something so obtrusively faggy sitting on the men’s shelves of any store in South Park. If he had, he would’ve bought it and blackmailed one of his friends to wear it, preferably stupid Kyle…

But somehow, Cartman doubts that Chaos was blackmailed into wearing a pair of Hello Kitty boxers. It’s far more likely the weirdo chose them himself, and—goddamn, Cartman never thought he’d say this about anybody, but they actually  _ suit _ the little blond twink’s chirpy personality. It makes Cartman feel kind of bad about having to cut them off. But Chaos is still frozen and  _ everybody _ knows that the first step to saving someone from hypothermia is removing their wet clothing. And Cartman has already resolved not to deal with any homemade amputations today...and that includes emasculations. Can a dick and balls even be frozen to the point of needing to be cut off? Cartman has no idea, but if the answer is yes, then it’s his duty as a man to do everything in his power to save that from happening. Besides, the damp Hello Kitty briefs are plastered against what looks to be an extremely impressive package, and boy, wouldn’t it be a pity to lose something like  _ that _ …

A volcanic blush erupts on Cartman’s face. “Oh no, fuck no, I am  _ not _ thinking about this,” Cartman moans to himself. He quickly snips off Chaos’s wet underwear before he can second-guess himself again, then throws a towel over Chaos’s groin so that...the enormous  _ it. _ ..is hidden from view. His heart is pounding so quickly that he might as well have just run a marathon. 

Beneath his fingers, underneath the white, nearly-translucent skin, Chaos’s pulse is racing even faster than Cartman’s. Cartman panics, and for a heartstopping second, wonders whether Chaos has woken up after all, cognisant of the fact that Cartman’s just stripped him butt-ass naked. But a quick glance at the lolling blond head confirms that Chaos is still completely out cold; maybe it has something to do with the fact that Chaos’s electricity-based powers basically make him a walking, talking defilibrator, similar to Tweek but on an even more extreme level. No wonder the poor villain is fucking insane; Cartman thinks he would be insane too if his heart rate constantly averaged five-fucking-hundred.

The last order of business is to take care of the ugly gash Chaos had sustained from fighting Cartman that morning. Cartman had been avoiding looking at it, not out of squeamishness (when it comes to blood and gore, Cartman’s stomach is made of pure titanium), but because knowing that he’d caused it somehow still manages to make his cold, unfeeling heart well up with guilt, even though it’d been a necessary move of self-defense (mostly). But he didn’t go through all this trouble to let Chaos die from something stupid like blood loss. 

The wound itself is even worse than Cartman imagined: on the surface, it’s about three inches wide, but because Chaos had been skewered with the sharp, pointy of the tree branch, the cut is so deep that there’s the white thing visibly sticking out of Chaos’s side can only be the actual bone of his rib. Cartman had known all along that Chaos was injured, but it only now occurs to him that Chaos must have spent their entire market excursion in excruciating pain. And even though the whole trip had Chaos’s idea in the first place, the thought still manages to make Cartman’s cold little heart contract with even more unbidden guilt. Any more of it and Cartman thinks his chest just might implode on itself. The language of remorse is as foreign to him as fucking Swahili. 

He gets to work cleaning the wound with warm soap and water. Then, armed with needle and thread from his Tweek-mandated Coon & Friends Emergency First Aid Kit, he starts stitching the cut closed, using his fingers to hold torn flesh together with his fingers. It’s a messy job; the injury in it of itself is jagged, and the skin is broken at odd angles and doesn’t want to stay together. In the end, Cartman thinks he might’ve dug the needle a little too deep and that the stitches look more like tangled mess of thread than it’s supposed to, but at least Chaos’s freaking rib isn’t sticking out of his body anymore. The fact that Chaos was unconscious for the procedure had helped, though: at one point that the villain had sucked in a ragged breath as Cartman dragged the needle through his skin, but otherwise hadn’t stirred. Cartman remembers the one time the Human Kite had gotten slashed in the arm by a Chaos minion, and Wonder Tweek had had to give him stitches when they’d retreated back to headquarters. The stupid Jew had wriggled and yowled so much that Cartman still gets headaches just  _ thinking _ about his loud, irritating voice. It’s honestly amazing that the normally-spazzy Tweek was able to keep his hands steady through the entire affair; Cartman thinks that he would’ve ended up committing murder-by-needle if Chaos had been half as squirmy or shrieky as Kyle had been. Though Cartman doubts that Chaos, whose only response to being injured had been an insatiable craving for ice cream, would’ve been fazed by stitches even if he  _ were _ awake; Cartman can already imagine Chaos giving him a brilliant-eyed, boyish grin whilst getting _ sewed back together _ like Frankenstein, if Frankenstein were cute and blond-haired. In this aspect Chaos is infinitely more lovable than Kyle.

_ Not...not that that’s saying much! _ Cartman thinks, his blush erupting across his face for a second time.  _ After all, stupid Jews like Kyle are like, the lowest standard for any human being, ever! _

Cartman stomps away to the bathroom and washes his blood-soaked hands with more vehemence than necessary, willing all thoughts of Kyle’s insufferableness and Chaos’s lovableness to go down the drain. He wastes a good five minutes standing at the running sink and staring at himself in the mirror. Is the person looking back at him still a hero?

And does he really honestly give a fuck about the answer to that question?

At one point, Cartman fleetingly wishes that the eyes looking back at him were a  _ certain shade of blue _ rather than his own familiar amber. It’s really only a miniscule, almost subconscious flicker of thought, but it jars him enough that he immediately flees from his own reflection. 

Back in the living room, Chaos is as Cartman left him, his tiny form sprawled out over the couch. Cartman decides that for the sake of his own sanity, he can’t allow Chaos to continue lying there with nothing but a towel draped over his dick. Besides, Cartman doesn’t want Chaos to get any funny ideas about being naked when he inevitably wakes up. Grumbling under his breath, Cartman goes to his bedroom and digs through the bowels of his wardrobe until he finds the fluffy pink bathrobe Gramma Mabel had gotten for him before she croaked. She was more senile than human when she gave it to him, and Cartman has never worn the fucking thing because the color clashes with his hair (obviously), and now it’s way too small for him anyway, but for some reason he’s never thrown it away. Cartman refuses to acknowledge that he’d maybe kept the stupid thing out of something as lame and faggy and  _ sentimentality _ —no, his awesome raccoon instincts must’ve sensed that he would one day have a naked Chaos sleeping on his downstairs couch, for whom Gramma’s pink robe is a perfect fit. And what do you know—the color  _ perfectly _ complements Chaos’s electric blond. 

As an afterthought, Cartman gently lifts said electric blond head and places a pillow under it. Unlike the undressing and the stitching which Cartman had done to keep Chaos from actually freezing or bleeding to death, this particular action serves no actual purpose other than to make Cartman’s unlikely house guest more comfortable in his rest. 

_ He’s gonna have one hell of a headache when he wakes up _ , Cartman tells himself as he lightly fingers the large bump where he’d hit Chaos’s head with the helmet,  _ and don’t I want him to bitch at me about it when he does _ .  _ He’ll flip his shit like a fucking banshee for all I know, but if he knows I played nice enough to put a pillow under his stupid head, maybe he’ll think twice about trying to set me on fire. Yes. _ Cartman fluffs the pillow absently.  _ This is just to protect my own awesome self from secondhand exposure to lightning and bitchiness _ .

————

For the next twelve hours, Cartman alternately tidies up his house and takes fitful little bits of sleep. As much as he would like to pass out on his bed and worry about nothing but the contents of his dreams, he’s still too paranoid to leave the supervillain alone and unsupervised downstairs in his living room. So he resorts to taking short naps in the armchair next to Chaos’s couch. He wants to be present when the villain wakes up. Just in case Chaos wants to try anything sneaky with his sneaky villain ways. Perturbed by the silence between them, Cartman turns on the television, studiously avoiding any channel bearing the news. Terrance and Phillip’s brilliant fart jokes become a pleasant hum of background noise. 

At one point, Chaos begins to toss and turn and mumble incoherently, though he doesn’t actually wake up. Cartman surmises that the blond isn’t actually unconscious any longer but has slipped into regular sleep. But the events of their shared Christmas Eve have obviously taken their toll on Chaos’s body, and who knows for how long Chaos had been awake before that—he’d already had horrendous bags under his eyes when Cartman ran into him in the morning, after all. So Cartman resists the urge to shake awake his companion and instead allows Chaos to continue sleeping. After all, it’s all in Cartman’s favor if Chaos wakes up well-rested. It significantly reduces his chances of getting bitched at and lightning-blasted at. 

He wonders if Chaos is dreaming. He wonders if they’re good dreams. 

A little later, he is bombarded by alerts on his Coon & Friends phone (which he keeps separate from his personal-use cellular). He’d known all along that it would only be a matter of time before the rest of the heroes are caught up with the incident down at Stark’s Pond. The Human Kite and Fastpass report that they’d arrived on site a few minutes after the police, and that their combined efforts had saved most of the people trapped in frozen water, though quite were still in critical condition from hypothermia or shrapnel-related injuries from the initial lightning blast. Neither of them had seen even a shadow of Professor Chaos, or any of his minions, at the crime scene, which they deem most peculiar and out-of-character. It’s not like Professor Chaos or his cronies to jump ship mid-attack. 

Call Girl wants to immediately call a meeting to discuss these new developments. Mosquito, the Human Kite, and Tupperware agree, but most of the heroes respond that it’s too close to Christmas Eve dinner for them to abscond without arousing the suspicion of their families. Call Girl writes:

**Call Girl**

What about you, @The Coon? I doubt your “family” wants you to ruin their xmas dinner anyway so is your excuse not to come gonna be how much of a lazy fatass you are?

**The Coon**

@Call Girl bitch I doubt your christmas tree wants to be inside ur shallow 1’’ vagina but too bad ur too much of a dirty slut to resist fcking urself with it

**Tupperware**

Jesus we leave you guys alone for 2 SECONDS and this is what happens…

@Call Girl lay off coon, just saw him and i doubt he’s in condition to attend any meeting at this point anyway

Call Girl leaps on the opportunity to bombard Tupperware with questions about the Coon’s “condition” and what the hell his was doing with Tupperware. Cartman takes this as his queue to put the phone away. He’s silently grateful for Tupperware’s unexpected defense, but he can’t stand reading about their speculations about Chaos at the moment. He thinks he’d breathe easier if he completely refrained from picking up his Coon & Friends phone whilst said villain is still in his house. 

He also couldn’t help but notice Mysterion’s silence in the chat. Cartman wonders who else has realized that Mysterion is currently dead.

Hours later, Cartman blinks awake from yet another bout of light sleep. His brain is still groggy, his muscles stiff, and his vision foggy, but his innate raccoon instincts tell him that there’s something  _ different _ this time around. His nose catches the vague scent of steel and singed cloth that is quickly becoming all too familiar—and he suddenly remembers that it belongs to Chaos, Chaos who is only a few feet away from him recovering from his stitches and concussion. 

Cartman’s eyes fly open and immediately fall upon the villain, who is still in the same reclining position on the couch with Gramma Mabel’s ridiculous pink robe wrapped around his body. But Chaos’s eyes are  _ open _ . The lightning freak is  _ awake _ , his eyes wide open and trained on the television, the bouncing forms of Terrance and Phillip reflected and dancing about in his sparkling blue eyes. Cartman wonders whether Chaos has watched Terrance and Phillip before and whether he likes them. Fondness for the comedic Canadian duo would win Chaos even more lovableness points in Cartman’s books. Cartman can’t help but wonder how long Chaos has been awake, lying on the couch watching Terrance and Phillip like it’s nothing, himself dozing an arm’s distance away. There’s no way Chaos is unaware of his presence, and it also doesn’t seem like Chaos has tried anything sneaky, either.

For a few seconds, Cartman just sits there and watches Chaos watch TV, and the supervillain doesn’t seem to notice that his host has awoken. But Chaos eventually seems to sense a pair of eyes trained upon him, and he looks up to meet Cartman’s gaze with a surprised expression. Although it’s only been half a day since Cartman’s looked into those eyes, it already feels like it’s been too long. He experiences the bizarre sensation of his soul flying out of his body and crashing back into it in the space of half a second, giving further credence to Cartman’s belief that Chaos is actually just an incarnation of the devil. 

Chaos says nothing, continuing to look at Cartman with that surprised expression on his face. Cartman doesn’t blame him—what exactly does a supervillain say to the superhero who stabbed him with a pointy tree branch and beat his ass with his own helmet? As the superhero in question, Cartman is faced with a similar dilemma. He toys with a colorful range of possible greetings—from a sarcastic “ _ Good morning Sunshine _ ” to “ _ HOLY FUCK YOU’RE FINALLY AWAKE, FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING PIECE OF FUCKING CRAP _ ”.

He finally settles for crossing his arms as nonchalantly as possible and saying, “Wow. You look like shit.” 

Chaos does the owlish slow-blink in response. He slowly lowers his eyes as though to take stock of his own appearance, and blinks again at the pink bathrobe and skimpy towel around his waist as though noticing them for the first time. Cartman feels himself blushing again. Gah, it’s too early for this shit! Or late—what the hell even is the time? A quick glance at the clock tells him that it’s just past midnight. Whatever!—the point is—”I wasn’t talking about— _ that _ —you stupid perverted fuck—I was talking about your stupid face. You look like you got double-whammied by a fucking tank. And maybe also raped by a shark. Trust me, I know what that looks like.”

Chaos gapes, and his gaze flies back down to his loincloth of a towel. 

Cartman’s heart drops. “ _ I didn’t fucking rape you, okay _ ! If I did, you’d totally be feeling it up your ass because I have a total monster cock that isn’t small at all. At all!” Cartman realizes that he’s rambling, but he can’t bring himself to stop. “And besides, I’m a fucking raccoon, not a stupid shark, and even if I  _ was _ a shark I already told you that I have the manliest of—manly bits! And shark-raping is just a figure of speech anyway, for, for the purpose of telling you how fucking much like absolute shit you look!” Cartman swallows down the queasy feeling in his stomach following his mortifying little speech. He finally thinks he understands what Stan always meant when he talked about being out of control of his own mouth whenever he tried to talk around that bitchy hoe Wendy. Then he thinks he’s reached a new personal low if he’s drawing parallels between himself and Stanley I’m-the-most-pathetic-human-on-the-planet-’cause-I’m-wet-for-a-dirty-Jew-and-a-skanky-hoe Marsh. 

Chaos, however, seems completely unaware of Cartman’s existential crisis—in fact, he seems to have lost all interest in Cartman altogether, which somehow manages to offend Cartman, even though he’d rather take back the rambling speech he’d just made. Instead, Chaos’s hands slowly travel up to the crown of his head. The villain hisses in pain as his fingers probe the large lump. 

_ Don’t feel bad, don’t  _ fucking _ feel bad, he brought this on himself, _ Cartman chants to himself. He watches as realization slowly dawns in Chaos’s eyes—Cartman wonders whether he’s finally recalling the events leading up to getting his head bashed and losing consciousness. 

There’s something slightly accusing in Chaos’s eyes when he looks up at Cartman again. Cartman suddenly feels unreasonably frustrated and defensive. 

“My helmet…” Chaos rasps in a hoarse voice. 

“I put your dumbass  _ hat _ upstairs,” Cartman snaps irritably. “Why you would voluntarily wear something that makes you look like the biggest tool in the fucking universe is beyond me—probably because you already are the universe’s biggest tool. And—stop  _ looking _ at me like that, you asshole! I already  _ told _ you that I don’t want to die, and you  _ still _ tried to blow both of us up! I don’t care if you’re a fucking supervillain who kills people for fun, that’s just a dick move and totally fucking lame! And weak!”

“Coon…” Chaos interjects.

“If you think I was just gonna take that lying down, you can suck on my smelly fucking asshole—”

“Coon!” Chaos says again, a little louder this time. “Don’t—just don’t. I’m not mad.”

“No, and you—wait...what?”

Chaos stares blearily up at the ceiling. “You beat me,” he sighs, his Southern-ish accent coming out even thicker than before. “I was out there bein’ all stupid and reckless the way General Disarray always tells me not to be. B-but I can’t fuckin’ listen to anybody for shit, so I fucked up. You beat me, fair and square. I guess a part of me always knew this would happen someday.”

“...Damn straight,” Cartman agrees after a pause. It’s the most reasonable thing he’s heard Chaos say all day—hell, it’s the most reasonable thing he’s heard  _ anyone _ say in a long time. But part of Cartman had been itching for a fight, and he’s disappointed and dissatisfied in the wake of Chaos’s easy surrender. Not to mention that something about the sad defeat in Chaos’s tone just doesn’t sit right with Cartman. 

But Cartman doesn’t know what he can do to remedy that, so he simply sighs. “Bathroom is down that hall, first door to your right,” he says. “I’d imagine you need to use it, considering that that disgusting fucking eggnog ice cream is still swimming around inside your stomach. I’ve totally, like, crapped four times since then already. By now the ice cream has probably mutated into some kind of mutant monster diarrhea inside of you, and in the name Christ’s hairy balls I am gonna  _ lose my shit  _ if you release it all over the couch.”

Chaos merely nods, as though hearing about mutant monster diarrhea isn’t all that unusual. Maybe it isn’t—who knows what people talk about around the Chaos lair? Maybe mutated poop is a regular topic of conversation in that shithole, wherever it is. Chaos makes to sit up, but he immediately groans and clutches at his injured side. 

On instinct, Cartman jumps to his feet, but falters when he sees Chaos gritting his teeth and sitting up despite the pain. The villain gingerly pushes his legs off the couch and begins to stand. 

“Uh...you need help getting to the bathroom?” Cartman offers awkwardly. “Or if you’d prefer to crawl like a dumb little cripple, I ain’t gonna judge.”

“I don’t need help,” Chaos grinds out through his gnashed teeth, and before Cartman can comment further, brings himself to his feet in one swift motion. He lets out another hiss, but otherwise doesn’t cry out. Fists clenched tightly around his bathrobe and with careful, painstaking movements, the villain begins treading towards the bathroom. Still, he is moving more quickly and more steadily than Cartman would expect from someone who’d sustained his injuries. The possibility of Chaos having a secondary pain-tolerance power is becoming less and less of a joke. It wouldn’t be any weirder than Kenny’s I-can’t-avoid-dying-in-horrible-ways-but-I-always-come-back-anyway power.

Still, Cartman doesn’t want Chaos to fall over and bleed out all over his carpet, or try anything sneaky with his sneaky villain ways, so he follows him all the way to the bathroom. At one point Chaos pauses his hobbling to throw an annoyed glare at Cartman. Offended, Cartman flips him off. “Well you’re  _ welcome _ for being worried, asshole! Go ahead and slip and crack your head open on the goddamn toilet bowl for all I care! God!”

Chaos’s glare intensifies, and it looks as though he’s about to say something, but then he presses his lips firmly together and stomps (to the best of his ability) into the bathroom and slams the door behind him. 

“Don’t come out till you’re done having your period,  _ princess _ !” Cartman fumes. To himself, he bemoans, “God, what the  _ fuck _ is his  _ problem _ ?” 

Cartman stomps to the kitchen, questioning all the life choices he’d ever made to lead him up to this point. Now that Chaos is awake and being a bitch, Cartman can no longer fathom what possessed him to bring said ungrateful blond bimbo bitch into his home. He should’ve just left him at Stark’s Pond to get his ass beat by the stupid police! 

Of course, if Cartman had actually done that, it would be the  _ police _ that got their asses beat instead, but a dude can dream. 

He sets some water to boil and digs out a package of instant noodles from the pantry. It’s some weird spicy flavor that he can’t pronounce because the label is written in Chinese (the noodles had been a surprisingly adequate birthday present from Kevin Stoley: Asians may be douchebags, but it’s because of them that the magic of instant ramen exists, so they’re not as bad as black assholes or dirty Jews or faggy gingers in Cartman’s books). 

And after a moment’s thought, Cartman grudgingly takes out a second package of instant noodles for Chaos. Cartman’s quite reluctant to waste a package of the delicious noodles on anyone other than himself, but he’s not going to let the stupid villain have  _ any _ excuse to think that the motherfucking Coon is a  _ bad _ house host. Still, he deviously hopes that Chaos can’t handle his spice, and that Chaos will make a pussy out of himself getting his tongue burned out by some chink noodles. 

Cartman’s just finished pouring the boiling water over the two bowls of noodles when Chaos quietly wanders into the kitchen. The villain’s face is glistening wet, and a couple strands of golden hair are sticking to his forehead, presumably because he’d washed his face to freshen up. The pink bathrobe has now been tied more tightly around his torso, and Cartman once marvels at the fact that it really does fit Chaos so well. The villain continues standing there awkwardly, as though he doesn’t know what to do with himself. Irritated once again, Cartman slams the two bowls of noodles down onto the table. “Do I have to S-P-E-L-L it out for you, retard? Sit the fuck down.”

Robotically, Chaos sits the fuck down. Cartman slides Chaos’s serving of noodles to his end of the table and tosses a fork and spoon at him (because fuck chopsticks). Cartman is about to dig into his own meal when he suddenly remembers that it’s past midnight. “Oh hell, this is the first meal of Christmas Day, isn’t it?” he says in a falsely saccharine voice. “I guess I better say my grace. Dear Lord, Merry Fucking Christmas. Stop fucking me in the ass without any goddamn lube. I hate everyone, I hate Mysterion, I hate stupid Professor Chaos, I hate Jesus Christ, and most of all I hate you. Santa Claus is a pedophile and everything sucks ass because of you. For Christmas I’d like a nice little bottle of Vaseline for the next time you fuck me. And a dream where you come down and suck my balls. Amen.”

“Amen,” Chaos mutters seriously, as though that wasn’t a completely purposeful abomination of Christmas grace. The blond’s voice is still woefully raspy from disuse. 

Cartman doesn’t delay stuffing food into his mouth, but Chaos remains silent and fidgety and looks at his spicy soup with suspicion in his eyes. 

“What’s the deal? It’s just a little chili. Or is Professor Chaos actually a big fat chili pussy?” Cartman smirks derisively. 

But Cartman’s goading fails to get the reaction he wants. Chaos only seems to fold in on himself even further, and dispiritedly shakes his head without looking up. It’s pathetic enough to almost make Cartman lose his own appetite. 

“Are you  _ actually _ retarded?” Cartman rants. “No, wait, don’t answer that, it’s too obvious and you don’t have to not be fucking retarded to answer that. Just—just eat the goddamn soup, Chaos. It’s not  _ poisoned _ .” Cartman reaches over the table with his own spoon, scoops up a spoonful of Chaos’s soup, and stuffs it in his own mouth to prove his point. “Using poison is a fucking dick move, that’s why only females use it. Besides, if I wanted you dead I would’nt’ve gone through the trouble of sewing you back together, like a fucked up Barbie or something, I’m so seriously. So STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT and fucking EAT before your stomach actually shrivels up and wastes all my efforts, goddammit!”

“You did this?” Chaos asks, too surprised to remember to stay silent. He gingerly palms the place where his stitches are. 

“No, a fucking unicorn flew in and magically did it for you. Of course I fucking did, asshole. Who else?”

“I dunno. It would sure seem more likely for a unicorn to wanna fix me up than the Coon, I guess.”

“Well it wasn’t a fucking unicorn, so you should stop licking your imaginary horse dick. It was  _ me _ .”

Cartman expects Chaos to continue being an ungrateful piece of shit and to make some comment about the poor execution of the stitches, but instead Chaos surprises him by saying, “Well, thank you, Mister Coon. You did it way better than I would’ve done.” Then he finally unlocks his rigid posture and takes a small bite of his noodles. 

Cartman is still too surprised by Chaos’s statement to feel too disappointed by the fact that the spiciness doesn’t seem to be affecting Chaos all that much. “What  _ you _ would’ve done? Surely among the hundreds of sycophantic little cockroaches you call cronies—”

“Minions,” Chaos corrects.

“—yeah, whatever, the point is that they’re sycophantic cockroaches—surely at least one of those cockroaches is medically trained?”

Chaos suddenly seems absorbed with chewing daintily on his food. With a small scowl, he says, “‘Course there are. And they’re good kiddos, too, real talented at patchin’ people up an’ all that doctory stuff. The problem is I’m Professor Chaos. Lotsa people want me dead, even everyone’s favorite hero The Great and Mighty  _ Mysterion _ wants me fuckin’  _ dead _ .” Chaos says this last bit with a particular bit of vitriol, and Cartman half expects streams of flames to spew out of Chaos’s nostrils. Cartman decides that now would probably be a bad time to inform Chaos that Mysterion doesn’t want to kill him so much as he wants to  _ recruit _ him.

“So?” Cartman asks instead. “If you think Myst is gonna dress up in your faggy minion costume and joins your ranks undercover just to kill you from the inside or whatever, you are clearly giving him way too much fucking credit. Myst’s actually a lot stupider than what I think you’re giving him credit for. The only things that jerk is good at killing from the inside are vaginas. Oh, and assholes, because he’s a total gay whore, too.”

“Forget Mysterion! He ain’t the fuckin’ point!” Chaos protests, though he does seem slightly discombobulated by the  _ extra insight _ into Mysterion’s character. “D—d’you think really think this is the first time someone tried to poison me?”

“I  _ didn’t _ try to poison you though!” Cartman points out.

“I guess you wouldn’t have to,” Chaos spits, “you’re The  _ Coon _ . Everyone already loves you—and you have  _ aaaaall _ the glory you could ask for, anyway. But it ain’t the same for my minions. I love those lil’ fuckers to death, but I reckon they only follow me more for power rather than loyalty for Chaos’s righteous cause. It’d be way too easy for ‘em if their leader was—c-cryin’ like a whiny little pussy everytime he got a little cut. You can’t trust ‘em, Coon. You can’t trust  _ anyone _ , but  _ especially  _ not the people you think are closest to ya.”

Wow. Cartman hadn’t expected a simple question to devolve into an insightful journey into Chaos’s messed-up psyche and trust issues. It also kind of explains why Chaos’s body looks like a human patchwork quilt. Cartman takes a moment to wonder what it’s like. He won’t deny that he has sometimes in the past felt envious of Chaos for having amassed such an extensive empire of slaves—excuse him, _ minions _ —to command to his insane whims, while The Coon as the founder of his team can’t even have one simple conversation with the rest of them without being accused of horribleness, selfishness, fatness, or some unholy combination of the three. And yet...Cartman can’t really imagine any of them actually attempting to  _ assassinate  _ him. In fact, as much as Cartman despises them, he has trusted all of them, even the Human Kite and Call Girl and Super Craig, with his  _ life, _ on  _ multiple _ occasions. Is he getting lazy and careless? Should he be more suspicious of them? Had Token intended to slip him cyanide earlier, when he’d invited Cartman into his house for drinks? It seems Chaos would think so. Chaos’s own minions have tried to poison their leader before. That really takes the rosy tint out of the picture of Chaos’s throne. 

But then Cartman reminds himself that Chaos is weird and insane, and he shouldn’t take the paranoid sermons of a supervillain as life advice. 

“Hmph,” Cartman tuts mockingly. “Sounds to me like you can’t even maintain your own fucking  _ Chaos Machine _ . Or maybe the oh-so-scary Professor is just a self-pitying emo goth bitch! What’s your next big plan, Chaos? Drink some blood and bore the rest of us to death with your  _ moping _ ?” He laughs out loud.

Chaos’s patience suddenly snaps, and he throws down his fork and rises from his seat, apparently unhindered by his injuries. “I’m tired of you and all y-your—dumb, stupid assumptions,  _ Coon _ ! You don’t know me!” Chaos yells. And as an afterthought, adds, “And goths don’t drink blood. Vampires do! Get your fuckin’ facts straight!”

In the same beat, Cartman jumps to his feet, towering over Chaos with his superior height. He slams his hands on the table. “You know what, Chaos! I am  _ tired _ of your bullshit! I told you not to come out of the fucking bathroom until you finished having your gay little period and you obviously didn’t fucking listen!”

“I ain’t havin’ a gay little period!” Chaos yells back. “Maybe th-this is just the way I am, Coon! Maybe you’re the one h-havin’ a gay little period and you’re just projectin’ on me!”

“ _ Me _ ?” Cartman shrieks. “No I’m not! I can’t have gay little periods because I’m a totally awesome, totally cool manly  _ man _ and we  _ men _ don’t have  _ periods _ ! But you’re obviously just a chirpy little homo princess who likes ice cream and skating and sunshine and rainbows and fucking— _ Hello Kitty _ ! And now you’re just moping around because of all the blood coming out of your faggy little boyboy-vajayjay.”

“All of that—i-i-it could’ve been an act for all you know!” Chaos objects. “Tuh—to get you to, to underestimate me! You don’t know me at all, Coon!” But Chaos’s slight blush betrays him, because he must’ve realized exactly  _ how _ Cartman came to know his weakness for a certain mouthless cat. 

“But I  _ don’t _ underestimate you, Chaos. If you wanna know the truth, well—you’re a fucking badass with lightning who could sweep the floor with all of us, and it honestly makes me laugh when you ride Mysterion’s corpse like nothing. But that doesn’t change the fact that you’re still a twinky homo princess. Nothing can take the homo princess out of you and you might as well just stop having your period now and accept it.”

“No! I don’t accept anything! And I  _ won’t _ ! Nuh-not that I’m havin’ a gay period or anythin’, but if I was, hypothetically o’course, I—I wouldn’t stop on account of you! I’d do whatever the hell I want and I’d bleed all over your precious carpet and make your crippled telepath clean it up! And I’d totally laugh at him even though he’s a cripple and you ain’t supposed to laugh at those, b-because I’m a fuckin’ villain and evil things like that is what I’m  _ good _ at doing! Go on, all of ya, stop hidin’ behind the Coon and pretendin’ to be nice. I know you’re all just a bunch of stuck-up hypocrites. Especially you, Mysterion. And, and if you don’t know how to deal with me then go ahead and get rid of me! Stop pretendin’ to nice and just do it, DO IT!”

“Who the fuck are you yelling at?” Cartman asks incredulously. It’s become obvious that Chaos is no longer addressing him, since the villain’s turned his back to the kitchen table and is seething angrily at Cartman’s empty living room. 

“Don’t play pretend, Coon!” Chaos snaps without turning around to face him. “I just  _ know _ that that bastard Mysterion’s hidin’ somewhere ‘round here—”

Cartman wonders if this means that Chaos can remember Mysterion’s deaths and subsequent regenerations after all, or if Kenny’s already been resurrected, thus wiping Chaos’s memory of the previous demise. Ultimately, Cartman decides that the fine details of Chaos’s knowledge matter less than the fact that Chaos seems to expect Mysterion, and maybe also Doctor Timothy for some unfathomable reason, to come leaping out from underneath the couch. Or by cripple had Chaos meant Fastpass? No no, he’d said  _ telepath _ . Speaking of which, why the fuck are there so many cripples in their superhero team? 

“I know it’s against your inferior villain DNA, but don’t be a fucking jerk, Chaos,” Cartman says. “There’s no one else here besides the two of us! I already told you that I don’t have family! And I wouldn’t let you get your icky princess germs all over my nonexistent wife, anyway!”

At this, Chaos spins around and boggles his eyes at Cartman. “This....” he gestures around helplessly. “...This is your house?”

What? Hadn’t Chaos realized that by now? “Of course it’s my fucking house, where the fuck else would we be?”

“It’s so...impersonal,” Chaos says in awe. 

“Are you seriously judging my taste in decor right now?” Cartman asks disbelievingly. “And of course it’s impersonal. How do you think I spent all those hours you were sleeping like a pig? Making sure I didn’t leave anything with private personal info lying around, because _ ding _ -fucking- _ dong _ ! I don’t fucking  _ trust _ you. Isn’t it funny how fucking like-minded we are?”

What Cartman doesn’t say out loud is that his clearing up the house hadn’t made much of a difference. He’d put up one photograph of the late Mr. Kitty above his fireplace, but that’d been it. What would he have framed on his wall, anyway? Pictures of his shitty friends? No thanks. A photo of his ginger half-brother? Well, Cartman _ would  _ have hung one up if he possessed a picture of Scott crying like a fag upon learning about his parents’ demise...but no photographs of that moment exist, so no. A picture of his mom and his new  _ step-family _ ? No, because despite everything, Cartman would prefer not to live in a perpetual state of rage and resentment. He’d devoted most of his energy to filling up his freezer and pantry rather than decorating. The cleaning Cartman had done of his house while Chaos had been resting was mostly that of taking out the trash and picking miscellaneous piles of dirty laundry from the floor. He hadn’t wanted Chaos to wake up and judge him for being a slob. And yet Chaos is still judging him, about something else but  _ still _ . It raises Cartman’s rankles. 

“I just...I never thought Coon & Friends lair would be  _ your _ house,” Chaos says quietly. “I mean, I know it’s called  _ Coon _ & Friends and you’re the  _ Coon _ ...but still.” 

Cartman’s jaw drops as he puts two and two together. Unable to help himself, he drops back into his chair and bursts out into a loud guffaw. “Ahahahahaha! Oh my fucking god, man, you really ARE stupid! This whole time you’ve been...oh my god, IDIOT! And you thought Mysterion was hiding...hahahahaha…!”

“Wuh-what? What’s so funny?” Chaos demands, upset at being laughed at but not sure what he’s being laughed at about. “Stop laughing!”

“Hahaha, I can’t! You’re just too stupid!” Nevertheless, Cartman wipes the stray tears of mirth from his eyes and does his best to control his breathing, although a few undignified snorts still manage to escape him. “You thought this whole time you were at  _ headquarters _ ? That I betrayed you to Coon & Friends? What do you fucking take me for?”

Chaos looks genuinely chastised. With a look of childlike nervousness in his eyes, he shakily sits back down, and in a small voice, sputters, “Wuh-well, technically you  _ are _ Coon & Friends, so you wouln’t be betrayin’ anybody, since we’re supposed to be enemies…”

Cartman waves him away dismissively. “Ha! Puh-lease! I’m just  _ The  _ one and only  _ Coon _ , not Coon _ AND _ Friends—please don’t equate me with the rest of those jerks. Especially the Human Kite. God, I hate that guy. I’d die of humiliation if I were him! And do you really think the actual Coon & Friends headquarters would be so fucking  _ lame _ ?”

And at this, Chaos actually looks panicked. Waving his hands around placatingly, he says, “I—I never said your house was lame! Just...impersonal. There’s a difference.”

“Yeah, of course there’s a difference, douchebag! My house is awesome  _ and _ impersonal! I mean,  _ I _ live in it! But if this was the headquarters of our kickass hero corporation it’d be pretty fucking lame! Wouldn’t it, Chaos?”

“I...I guess so.”

“If I’d brought you back to headquarters, do you really think the rest of them would be stupid enough to let you sleep on the couch and watch TV and take a shit whenever you want? There’s  _ literally _ a cell with your name on it...and you’d be in it, probably all tied up with a gag in your mouth to keep you from bitching like the fucking bitch you are...and Call Girl would be beating the shit out of you, probably…I can see Super Craig joining in too. They really hate your guts down there, bro.”

“And you don’t?”

Cartman opens his mouth to reply, but only silence comes out. Chaos’s simple three-worded question sounds almost like an accusation. It feels like a turning point to their fucked up relationship. 

Or maybe they already  _ have _ reached their point of no return. Maybe Professor Chaos and The Coon reached that point a long time ago. 

“I hate how stupid and insane you are,” Cartman says acidly. “I certainly hate your lightning powers—fucking pain in the ass is what they are—and I hate your gay little periods and god! Your dumbass face. Especially your fucking eyes. I hate those the most.”

“But you don’t hate  _ me _ ,” Chaos concludes, and there’s this small little smile on his face that Cartman just  _ hates so much _ , and yet he can’t bring himself to say anything that would take it away.

So he says nothing, neither confirming nor denying the statement. 

Chaos finally relaxes in his chair, and all of his previous aggression just evaporates like it was never there to begin with.  _ Looks like the blood’s finally stopped gushing out of his boyboy-vajayjay _ , Cartman thinks. “Good golly, Coon, y-you really had me wound up for a second there!” Chaos giggles. 

“God, just listen to the way you talk,” Cartman mumbles. “I  _ told _ you you’re a faggy homo princess.” But something warm settles in his stomach at the return of his cheerful, childlike Chaos.

Uh, not that Professor Chaos is  _ Cartman’s _ , per se...

“So there’s really no one else here?” Chaos asks. “Just...the two of us?” 

The way conspiratorial way Chaos said that  _ really _ isn’t helping. “Didn’t I already say that?” Cartman grumbles.

“The only reason I was so sure you’d taken me prisoner is because I could’ve sworn I heard Tupperware’s voice,” Chaos says thoughtfully.

_ What! You were supposed to be unconscious when that happened _ ! Cartman nearly shouts in alarm, but then he decides that it’s better for Chaos not to know how close Cartman had actually come to handing him over. Still, the fact that Chaos managed to subconsciously pick up on Token’s voice unnerves him. Hadn’t Token said Cartman’s name out loud a couple of times? Oh hell, what if Chaos had heard that too? Chaos isn’t supposed to know The Coon’s civilian identity! “Are you sure that’s not your schizophrenia talking?” Cartman shoots back, trying to conceal his nervousness.

“Muh-maybe I was just dreamin’. I—I don’t have schizophrenia,” Chaos replies, but he has a wide-eyed look of guilt around him that makes Cartman wonder if he might actually have schizophrenia after all. It would certainly explain a few things about him.

“Just because Tupperware isn’t here doesn’t mean you’re not my fucking prisoner,” Cartman retorts. “I’m definitely not letting you go fuck off wherever you’d like. Maybe I just didn’t want to share you with the rest of those dickjerkers.”

“ _ Share _ me?” Chaos asks in a knowing voice.

“Maybe I don’t want anyone to fucking  _ interrupt us _ when I torture your balls off,” Cartman snaps, not liking Chaos’s amused tone. 

“Aww, you plannin’ on cuttin’ my balls off, Coon?” Chaos says airily, sounding thoroughly unconcerned. “That sucks, but I never planned on havin’ any kiddos anyway.”

“Aren’t you fucking worried that losing your balls would make you even less of a man than you are now? I mean, you’re so faggy, you’re practically a girl already. Getting castrated would like...totally make you a pathetic wimp with like three X chromosomes or something.”

Chaos has the gall to look at Cartman condescendingly. “Sure, it would suck and probably hurt an’ bleed a whole lot...but you see Coon, I don’t need balls or a, a m-monster cock such as yours, for that matter, to be the biggest baddest supervillain...the world has ever seen!”

Cartman feels as though he’s been slapped. And the fact that Cartman knows Chaos is particularly... _ well-endowed _ in a  _ certain area  _ makes the villain’s blasé attitude about possessing testicles and penis size even more infuriating. “Don’t fucking patronize me!” Cartman barks. “You think you’re all that, but you’re just a dumb blond sissy boy who’s always having some sissy tantrum. I am  _ The _ one-and-one-only motherfucking Coon, bitch! Only the manliest, scariest, most badass  _ hero _ the world has ever seen! And if you don’t respect me, your balls won’t be the only thing you lose today!”

Chaos laces his fingers together and rests his chin on his hands. “Aw, but you’re gettin’ it all wrong, Coon. I respect the heck outta ya. I decided ‘round the time that I became a supervillain that I wouldn’t  _ talk _ to the fuckers I don't respect anymore. Do you know what I’m saying? Out of all those hypocritical trash that call ‘emselves heroes, you’re the only one I got any respect for. In fact, you’re one of the  _ only _ people I got any respect for ‘sides from my good buddy Disarray. I mean, you  _ are _ still a hypocrite for callin’ yourself a hero, but you see this shitty world a little more, l-like the way I see it. You ain’t afraid of makin’ sacrifices, gettin’ your hands a little dirty. You’re a fighter and you don’t take compromises. And it sounds to me like you kinda hate Mysterion, too.”

Cartman is frozen. Chaos and his devilish silver tongue have drawn the breath right out of his lungs. On one hand, Chaos is accusing him of being a hypocrite, but on the other hand—Cartman can’t remember the last time anybody said they  _ respected _ him. And some of the things Chaos said just hit the nail too squarely on the head. 

“So you see, Coon,” Chaos continues, “I  _ do _ respect you, and I think you’re one big bad ball of big bad raccoonish scariness, but that doesn’t l change the fact that you don’t scare  _ me _ .” Cartman gets the distinct sense that his own words, about how he doesn’t underestimate Chaos but still finds him a twinky homo princess, are being thrown back in his face. “You said you couldn’t join my side, but then you hid me from the police and we spent the whole fuckin’ day together and you  _ still _ didn’t give me one teeny-tiny reason why not.”

Cartman gulps.  _ Dammit. I thought he’d forgotten about that _ . 

“So you see,” Chaos says smugly, “I was really just testin’ you, doin’ a bunch of, a-activities that I could tell you didn’t like that, just to see how much you would take—”

“Wait, come again? Are you fucking shitting me right now? You dragged me to the shittiest, faggiest event in the whole goddamn town, and spent a fuckload of money of dumb shit, just for some fucking fucked-up  _ Chaos initiation ceremony _ ? What the actual fuck, Chaos? That was all that was to you? Some fucking—”

“Well not exactly—I really  _ do _ like markets a whole lot!” Chaos says a bit sheepishly.

“And no means no, Jeffrey Epstein!”

“But it was all good fun, wasn’t it?...at least till those...goshdarned fuh-fuckers fucked it for everyone,” Chaos adds with a hint of simmering rage, and Cartman decides not to point out that  _ no, it was  _ not _ all good fucking fun, not for  _ me. “But if you think I go shoppin’ with just anybody out there, you are sorely mistaken, Mister!”

“Oh how I wish I could contain my enthusiasm for being given such a high fucking honor, my Lord,” Cartman says with a heavy roll of his eyes.

“That’s the spirit!” Chaos trills, once again exhibiting his uncanny unawareness of the concept of sarcasm. “And—and, after you beat me fair and square—ouch, by the way—” the villain gingerly touches the bump on his head once again, but otherwise seems unbothered by it—”you coulda easily gotten your silly hero buddies to gang up on me but you didn’t! And I know you say you brought me here to torture me all by your lonesome, b-but if that’s really the case then you sure got a strange way of torturin’ people, Coon! Stitchin’ me up, a-and lettin’ me sleep on your couch—”

“—Well I sure as hell wasn’t gonna let you sleep on my  _ bed _ !—

“—and wear your fluffy bathrobe—”

“—that’s not MINE, it was a stupid present I forgot about and I’d  _ never _ wear something like that—”

“—and watch TV—”

“—that wasn’t for  _ you _ ,  _ I _ was watching Terrance and Phillip first!—”

“—and use your bathroom—”

“—or what? Let you shit and have your gay period all over my  _ floor _ ?”

“—and makin’ me dinner. Why, Coon, it almost seems like you’re tryin’ to make a good impression!”

“Like I’d need to—”

“You wanna know what I think?”

“Hell no! Why would I?”

“Well, I think that somewhere deep down in your big beautiful raccoon heart you know—you  _ know _ that we’re alike. You and I, we’re cut from the same cloth.”

“Wh—no way! I have never been so insulted in my entire fucking life!”

Chaos gives Cartman an enigmatic smile. “You say that now, but there’s gotta be a reason why I didn’t wake all tied up and gagged like I should’ve been. Why you’re trustin’ me to walk around your house freely and not set it on fire. Harborin’ criminals—specially supervillains—is a federal offense I know you know it.”

“I’m starting to wish I did,” Cartman glares. “Tie you up and gag you, that it is.”

“Too late for that now!” Chaos chirps gleefully. “And didn’t you say that you didn’t hate me, Mister? Why, I’m startin’ to think that maybe you kinda like me a little.”

“D-don’t—don’t fucking flatter yourself,” Cartman says, but he trips over his words in a way that casts doubt on their legitimacy. “Now you’re the one making all these stupid assumptions and they’re all  _ stupid _ and  _ wrong _ because you’re a fucking retard. I’m a hero and I’m one hundred percent  _ not _ evil scum like you. The only reason I’m letting you off easy is because it’s fucking Christmas and I was in a merciful mood. A merciful mood that’s rapidly deteriorating due to your goddamn retardedness.”

Chaos’s face falls a little bit. “Buh-but that makes no sense, Coon. You said you don’t like Christmas.”

“ _ Buh-but you said you don’t like Christmas, Coon _ ,” Cartman croons in a crude, high-pitched imitation of Chaos’s warbly voice. “Yeah, and that’s what you said about yourself, dingus. Fact check, Professor  _ Idiot _ : people who don’t like Christmas aren’t supposed to like Christmas markets and  _ humping Santa Claus’s lap _ . Don’t think I didn’t see you, pervert!”

“I—I wasn’t humpin’ him! You—you don’t even know what I told him!”

“What did you tell him? How much you wanted to lick his candy cane nipples?”

“Wh—no! And I can’t tell you! It might not come true if I tell you! S-stop changin’ the subject!”

“Gah, I can’t believe I’m having a conversation about Santa with someone who’s  _ supposed _ to be an adult,” Cartman facepalms. “Ugh, whatever, so  _ sorry _ , Your Royal Douchebag  _ Lordness _ , for interrupting your fantasies about the North Pole pedophile.”

Chaos looks slightly miffed by Cartman’s accusations, but seems to decide that they’re not worth arguing about. “Christmas  _ markets _ aren’t the same thing as Christmas, the  _ holiday _ ,” Chaos explains patiently. “You see, Christmas  _ markets _ are just about shoppin’ and peppermint-flavored food and that’s all fun and good. But Christmas the  _ holiday… _ ” Chaos looks off past Cartman’s shoulder with an unreadable expression on his face, like he’s seeing something that’s not actually there. Cartman has to resist the urge to turn around and look. “...I used to love Christmas ever so much when I was a kid. All the pretty lights, a-an’ such.”

Cartman is struck with an incredible sense of déjà vu at that moment. He feels like he’s heard this exact phrase before. He wracks his brain for a bit, before it suddenly occurs to him. Linda Stotch on the television, talking about the Christmas Tree Fire.  _ “I’m just t-t-thinking about my little b-b-boy,”  _ she’d cried. _ “Oh, did he love the pretty lights ever so much. Hearing about this would’ve just—k-k-k-killed him!” _

Huh. What are the odds. Had Chaos watched that news clip as well, and borrowed some of Stephen Stotch’s annoying woman’s mannerisms of speech? 

“But now Christmas-the-holiday just reminds me ‘bout all the things they lied to me about,” Chaos continues quietly. “How Santa ain’t the only thing that ain’t real.”

“Nice,” Cartman says, faking a yawn. “Real nice, Chaos, congratulations on the dissertation. Now you can go write in your boring-ass encyclopedia about how to be a completely boring evil psychotic monster.”

But secretly, Cartman finds himself in agreement with Chaos. The adults had always lied, hadn’t they? And in retrospect, giving kids hope about a magical gift-giving old man was a mean and cruel trick indeed, but far from the worst deception they’d been guilty of. But for Cartman, all those deceptions really  _ had _ started with Christmas: the terrible, horrible, cursed holiday of  _ doom _ . 

Chaos laughs softly. When Chaos laughs, Cartman notices, he does it with his whole body. He squeezes his eyes shut as though he can’t bear to look at the world, and he scrunches up his nose and closes his hands into little fists and his shoulders tremble with mirth. When the villain calms down and finally opens his eyes again, he pins Cartman with his aquamarine stare of pure wickedness, and Cartman feels himself drowning. “You’re real funny, Coon,” Chaos says. “You’ve always been real funny, even though I didn’t realize it at first. The first time we met—I was still real low-level, you see. Didn’t even call myself Professor Chaos back then, but of course I ain’t gonna tell you what I  _ did _ call myself in case you figure out who I am. Can’t have that, no siree, no sir! Anyway, Mysterion an’ Toolshed an’ Human Kite were there too, and they were pretendin’ to be nice even though they didn’t really wanna give me the fuckin’ time of day, I could tell.”

“That does sound like them,” Cartman says, although his heart is pounding as he tries to postulate  _ who in seven hells  _ Professor Chaos could’ve been way back whenever-this-was. 

“Yeah, assholes! And you were standin’ off to the side, and you just came over and punched me right in the face! And you said—” here, Chaos scrunches his face and begins doing a disturbingly accurate impression of Cartman’s voice, “‘Ewwwww, it’s a faggot! Oh my god, you guys, let’s kill it before somebody else does!’”

Cartman gulps, suddenly wondering if Chaos is giving a standard villainous pre-murder speech about _ oh how you wronged me back then and now you will feel my wrath tenfold and such _ . Cartman tries to remember a time he may have said  _ Ewwww a faggot let’s kill it _ , but in all honesty he’s done this so many times that Professor Chaos could’ve been any one of those unlucky faggots. 

“And then y’all left me lyin’ in the dirt,” Chaos says good-naturedly. “And I thought, gosh darn, what a big ol’ meanie that Coon fella is! Ahaha! I was so dumb!”

“ _ Was _ ?” Cartman says skeptically, but he doesn’t put too much bite in his tone, in case this really is a pre-murder villain speech.

“Yeah, ‘cause now I know you’re not really a big ol’ meanie at all! You’re just super-duper honest with people, and you’re super funny when you do it, too! ‘A boring-ass encyclopedia about how to be a completely boring evil pscyhotic monster,’ you said—ahahaha, that’s a good one, Mister!”

Cartman thinks that this must be the first time anyone has accused him of honesty or good humor. “Tell that to Fastpass,” he says. “He thinks  _ he’s _ the comedic genius.”

“Fastpass? No way! His jokes ain’t funny at all!” For a moment Cartman wonders when Chaos would’ve heard Jimmy’s lame humor, but then he concedes that if anybody would make jokes in Chaos’s face in the middle of a battle, it would be Jimmy.

“Y’know, Coon, it’s thanks to you that I’m the way I am today,” Chaos says, and he actually reaches out and tries to poke Cartman in the middle of the forehead.

“Get your faggy paws off of me,” Cartman says, batting Chaos’s hand away. For a moment there, he’d thought that Chaos was about to shoot lightning at his face. “And if that’s supposed to make me feel good about myself, you’re clearly going about it the wrong way. I said you’re a faggy homo princess. If anything you should be apologizing.”

Annoyingly, Chaos doesn’t cease his efforts to bop Cartman’s forehead. Cartman resorts to crushing Chaos’s fingers in a bruising grip and forcing them down onto the table. Chaos’s smile doesn’t falter, but after a few seconds Cartman suddenly feels a small shock in his hand—not enough to do any real damage, but enough to sting wildly and make him let go. “FUCKER!” he yelps, extending his claws defensively. But Chaos has already scooted his chair away and stood up a safe distance away from Cartman and his deadly claws. 

“If I’d listened to Mysterion, I’d still be the same old cryin’ pussy I was back then,” Chaos says like nothing’s happened. “But because of what you said, I thought, ‘aw hamburgers, I really don’t wanna die! I better make myself better so fellas like the Coon don’t kill me!’”

“Did you seriously just say oh-fucking- _ hamburgers _ ?”

“And now I  _ am _ better,” Chaos says, ignoring Cartman. Chaos starts to pace around with his hands behind his back. His movements are still sluggish due to his injuries, his complexion still awful, his stature still tiny, and his bathrobe still ridiculous, but there’s a strange confidence to his gait that’s mesmerizing to watch, and in that moment, Cartman feels like he’s watching Professor Chaos give a speech from a stage, and he understands why this crazy, probably-schizophrenic blond bimbo twins has managed to attract so many equally crazy, also probably-schizophrenic, fanatic and loyal-to-a-fault minions. Because of his supernaturally evil blue eyes and his mesmerizing walk.

“I’m better than Toolshed now, I’m better than the Human Kite. And by the mercy of Mother Mary—I’m better than  _ Mysterion  _ too.”

And then Chaos pauses his pacing and turns to look directly at Cartman. “But after all this time I still ain’t better than the Coon, am I? Aw, I know I could kill you easily. Coon powers are badass but they’re no match for Chaos. But I always  _ try _ and something about you makes me not be able to  _ do it. _ ”

“Aha…well...I  _ told _ you I’m awesome—you were one who didn’t believe me!” Cartman chuckles nervously.

“Oh no, I believed you. I’ve  _ always _ believed you, Coon.”

Chaos’s voice is velvet now, smooth and dark. And even though they haven’t changed subjects, Cartman gets the feeling that Chaos is talking about something else, but Cartman hasn’t the foggiest  _ what _ . The conversation has slipped out of Cartman’s control, and he can’t regain control, not with the way Chaos’s eyes are his soul. 

“I….I thought you weren’t mad at me,” Cartman says lamely. It’s one the lamest things that’s ever come out of his mouth, on par with the lame  _ everything _ that comes out of Stan’s lame, pathetic mouth. But right now, Cartman doesn’t even care because he can feel himself dying from soul-penetration and he just wants to know what the hell is on Chaos’s mind.

Chaos smiles brightly. “Oh s-sweetheart.” The stutter is back, along with, it seems, the ridiculous pet names. “I’m not mad at you.”

“Then what’s point of bitching about my superiority to my face and trying to make me feel bad about it?” Cartman asks.

“Oh jeez—I nuh-never meant to make you feel bad, Mister. I was just thinkin’ aloud, mostly.”

“And you had to think aloud staring straight at my face?”

“Wuh-well, seein’ as my thoughts had everything to do with you…” Chaos trails off, his smile flickering for just a second before returning full force. “Don’t you think we’ve come full circle, Coon? All those years ago you beat my face in and left me in the dirt. Now this time you stabbed me with a pointy tree and beat me with my own fuckin’ helmet. But instead of leavin’ me, you brought me home. Don’t you think that’s gotta mean something?”

“I would,” Cartman concedes, “if I could remember the first fucking time. So it’s not really full circle for me—today’s been more of a big flat blob of weirdness instead of full circle. C’mon Chaos, don’t be stingy. Can’t you give me a tiny little clue about our first encounter? C’mon, man, for old time’s sake?”

“Oooh, boy, you are trickety-tricky-tricky but I ain’t gonna fall for that!” Chaos exclaims. “I know you’re just tryin’ to figure out who I really am. Wuh-well, Mister, you may still think I’m stupid but I’m really not as dumb as I used to be.” Chaos crosses his arms and looks at Cartman triumphantly. “Besides, if you really care all that much, all you gotta do is look deep inside yourself for the answer.”

“If you would just fucking  _ tell _ me, you’d really be saving the  _ both _ of us all the time that I’d have to spend doing something as gay as ‘looking inside myself’,” Cartman protests desperately. 

“Oh, take all the time you need, Mister Coon—I’ve got all the time in the world.”

“Well maybe  _ I _ don’t!” Cartman shouts. “Maybe I’ve had it up to  _ here— _ ” he makes a chopping motion at his neck—”with your bullshit and I don’t have much time to solve your stupid riddles before I  _ fucking _ implode! Is that really what you want, you fuck? For me to implode?”

Chaos is unimpressed. “I know your tolerance ain’t really this low,” he says flaty. “And It’s not a riddle. I just told you look inside yourself.”

“Yeah, well, what makes you think that’s gonna work? I was a busy man, okay? I didn’t have time to keep track of all the faggots I ever met, they’re just too many of you infesting the earth!”

“Well, I’m sorry you’re havin’ problems, but the problem with that is that it’s not  _ my _ problem.” 

“Gah, you cheeky little motherfucker!” 

Chaos seems to find Cartman’s outburst hilarious. “Oh, don’t make those eyes at me, Coon. It makes me wanna spill all my secrets.”

Cartman blinks rapidly and looks away as heat suddenly begins crawling up his face. He hadn’t been making eyes at Chaos, he’d just been glaring the fuck out of him! What is Chaos  _ talking _ about! “Shut the fuck up, dude!  _ You’re _ the one with the fuckin—evil Satanic eyes!”

“Evil Satanic eyes?” Chaos echoes perplexedly. 

Cartman purses his lips and refuses to meet said Satanic eyes. No one in hell is he going to explain to Chaos the weird pull his blue eyes have on Cartman. He’s already stooped to Stan’s pathetic levels once today—he’s not going there again. 

Chaos waits patiently for an answer, but when several long moments pass and Cartman says nothing, Chaos lets out a long sigh. “Oh, I’m goin’ about this all wrong,” he says. “I’m sure you understand the importance of keepin’ our identities secret. Otherwise you woulda given me some clue about your name, too. B-but let’s not linger on that. It’s enough knowin’ that I’m Professor Chaos and you’re the Coon.” 

“Barely,” Cartman grouches. He’d been content not knowing Chaos’s identity before, but now that Chaos has dangled his little anecdote in front of his face he just can’t stop  _ thinking _ about it. 

“Aw, Jesus. I didn’t mean to make you mad at me.”

“I am not fucking mad at you!” Cartman growls angrily, because if Chaos didn’t get mad for getting bashed in the head with his own helmet, it would make Cartman out to be petty if he got mad at this. 

“And I shouldn’t be makin’ you mad after everythin’ you’ve done for me today—”

“Are you  _ deaf _ ? I just said I wasn’t fucking  _ mad _ !” 

“Let me try to make things better. I s’pose I do owe you, don’t I? For not tyin’ me up and gaggin’ me and shit. I’m sorry if I seemed ungrateful. I really am thankful, Coon.”

“As you should be,” Cartman huffs. “But I don’t really trust what your sweet silvery words right now because I’m pretty sure you have some other evil ulterior motive.”

“My only motive is to make things better, Coon, for both of us, because it’s come to my attention that I’ve been awfully selfish today.”

“Of all the times to suddenly grow a brain, Chaos. You’re making it really hard to dislike this groveling, suddenly sensible version of you, but I still think you’re a nasty fuck with an ulterior motive.”

Chaos rolls his eyes and doesn’t dispute the case. “I don’t normally accept Christmas presents because I got a real problem with Christmas, a-as I have said. In the Chaos Corporation, Christmas gift exchange is punishable by…” Chaos clears his throat awkwardly. “Wuh-well, I guess you don’t really need to know what it’s punishable by. But you spared my life today and that’s the best kind of present a fella like me could get. So, by the power invested in me by all things chaotic, I’m makin’ the executive decision to, uh, exempt you from the usual punishment. In fact, I’m gonna do somethin’ really unusual and, and I’m gonna return the favor.”

Chaos suddenly looks nervous, and turns away and goes back into Cartman’s living room. Cartman hastily gets up and follows him. “That’s all well and good, but you’re forgetting that I don’t play by your pussy corporation rules!”

Chaos goes to the coffee table, where Cartman had left the bag of Chaos’s stupid Christmas market purchases. Chaos reaches into the bag, then hisses as he draws out a bleeding finger. 

“B-broken glass,” Chaos winces. “My ornaments must’ve gotten shattered at some point.”

Cartman holds up his hands. “Hey, don’t look at me. I’m not the one who decided to shoot lightning everywhere like a fucking psycho.”

“Lightning’s not the bad,” Chaos mumbles defensively, sticking his cut finger into his mouth. Cartman’s mind is then momentarily emptied of all thoughts by the way Chaos laps at the blood with his tongue. 

With a loud pop, Chaos removes his finger from his mouth and reaches back inside the bag, much more carefully this time. He draws out one of his pine-scented candles, which is, miraculously, still intact, and, because of a sheet of plastic protection, free of water damage. 

“Aha!” Chaos cries triumphantly.

“Dude,” Cartman says flatly, “if you’re planning on giving me your stupid candle, you can go ahead and shove it right up your sandy vagina. I’d surely enjoy that much more than the most generic, uncreative present in the history of the universe.”

“Oh, the candle’s not your present, Coon,” Chaos says with a slightly patronizing tone as he rips off the plastic covering. “I know you heroes don’t really understand subtlety, buh-but back at the Chaos Corporation Rule Number 23 is the importance of settin’ the atmosphere before commencin’ an attack. N-n-not that I’m about to attack you! I’m just tryin’ to underscore the importance of atmosphere!”

“Are you seriously?  _ You’re _ going to lecture  _ me _ about  _ subtlety _ ,” Cartman deadpans. “This coming from the guy who shot Mayor McDaniels in the face on  _ fucking _ TV. Oh yeah,  _ reeeeeal _ subtle, my dude.”

“Oh, th-that! My magnum opus as of yet, ahaha, hahahaha! And I bet you wouldn’t’ve remembered that so clearly, Coon, if I hadn’t used that wonderfully dramatic red lighting in the TV studio!”

Cartman has absolutely no recollection about the circumstances of the lighting during McDaniels’s grisly murder. Cartman looks at Chaos and supposes that he  _ could _ rip into the villain for his appallingly skewed priorities, but Chaos has such a proud look on his face as he recalls the so-called magnum opus of his crimes that Cartman can’t bring himself to rain on his parade.

Chaos ignites a small, precisely-controlled spark of electricity on the tip of his pointer finger and lights the candle wick with it. For a millisecond, the candle flame burns a brilliant, electric blue, before flickering to a soothing orange-yellow. Cartman silently marvels at Chaos’s all-encompassing mastery of his powers. 

Chaos sets the candle down on the table, then pads over to the wall and turns off the living room lights. The lights in the kitchen are still on, but they stream into the living room with naught but a muted brightness. That, combined with constant flickering of the candlelight and the flashing images on the television, seem to cast an enigmatic halo around Chaos’s body, softening the haggard shadows of his face.

“Um, muh-maybe you should, uh, sit down,” Chaos says, wringing his hands. The living room’s newfound darkness seems to have turned the villain back into a nervous kid, shy vulnerability bleeding through his posture. The flickering flame makes Chaos seem almost intangible, and Cartman half-expects the villain to simply disintegrate on the spot into nothingness. Cartman feels strangely comforted with every passing second that Chaos fails to disappear and remains solidly in his presence.

“Maybe you should stop wasting my time,” Cartman huffs long-sufferingly. “The bacteria in your asshole have probably evolved into a new fucking species by now.” But despite his complaints, Cartman complies with Chaos’s request and flops down heavily onto his couch.

A long moment passes in utter silence. Chaos appears stuck where he’s standing. “Ugh, how the fuck did I end up on babysitting duty for a neurotic villain,” Cartman sighs under his breath. To Chaos, he says, “Well, the fuck are you waiting for?” He slaps the spot on the couch next to himself. “Get over here, unless your shitty idea of repayment is giving me a crick in the fucking neck staring up at you. You might as well sit down, since your fag germs are all over the couch already.”

Thankfully, this manages to get Chaos moving: he scrambles to the couch in a manner that reminds Cartman of a dog scurrying towards its master. This gives Cartman an odd sense of satisfaction.

Chaos sits down, and Cartman suddenly regrets summoning him because even though there are three inches of distance between the two of them, Cartman can already feel the intense heat emanating from Chaos’s body. He’s torn between wanting to move closer to the heat or to abscond the fuck away. Meanwhile, Chaos stares deeply at the candle, from which elegant curls of silver smoke are now wafting. Its foresty pine scent is a bit artificial, but that’s literally the least of Cartman’s worries at the moment.

“L-l-look...Coon,” Chaos begins, still staring deep into the fire like it holds the answers to all the universe’s questions, “I really wanna express how grateful I am, t-to you, and also how I’m sorry for upsettin’ you earlier, and how I’m happy to be here, right here, right now…a-and also just...just how I don’t really hate you even though you’re a hero. Kinda like how you don’t hate me neither! But...anyhow...it’s kinda hard to communicate that all at once, you see, and I have no idea whether you’ll appreciate what I have in mind, ‘cause you and I have rather contrary tastes if I may say so myself. B-but, uh, maybe...could you try to keep an open mind, since it’s the thought that counts a-an’ all that jazziness?”

“I’m not making you any promises, asshole,” Cartman retorts. “I already know there isn’t anything you could possibly give me that could match The Coon’s unprecedented coolness and awesomeness, but it’s kind of hilarious how you’re trying so fucking hard. I mean, is the stupid candle supposed to make me  _ feel _ anything? Because right now, the only thing I’m feeling is—”

Cartman doesn’t get to finish his sentence, because in the very next moment, a pair of warm hands are cupping his cheeks. Chaos leans in and presses a chaste kiss onto Cartman’s lips.

It’s more of a peck than anything, innocent and dry and lasting for less than half a second, but the silence after that seems to last a million years. Chaos doesn’t let go of Cartman’s face. The blond’s eyes are screwed shut like he’s afraid of what he’ll see when he opens them, and his lips are frozen in an absurd pucker. His anxiety is so tangible that Cartman thinks he can hear the beating of Chaos’s heart—but then again, that might be his own heartbeat he’s hearing, pulsing with nervousness and hope and simmering excitement.

“You were right,” Cartman says huskily after his throats unsticks itself and the million years have passed. “We really do have contrary tastes.”

Chaos’s eyes open just a fraction, revealing two gorgeous gleaming slivers of terror. “You didn’t like it?” he whispers.

Cartman doesn’t bother answering Chaos’s retarded question. Instead, he grabs Chaos by the shoulders and closes the distance between them once again. Then he sets out showing Chaos _ just how much their tastes differ _ by kissing him with all the vehemence and passion he can muster. 

Chaos lets out an eep of surprise, but Cartman grabs a fistful of golden hair at the back of the villain’s head to prevent him from escaping. After a moment, Chaos melts under Cartman’s strong grip and shyly begins responding with his tongue. He moves his hands away from Cartman’s face and grips his shoulders instead, digging crescents into the hero’s shoulder blades with his nails. He lets out another little squeak, but this time it’s a squeak of pure contentment. 

It’s like a dam has broken. The sparks, the forbidden attraction, the sexual tension, perhaps even the threads of Fate—they’ve been building between them for so long, and now that the barrier has broken, they can’t help clashing together in a brilliant explosion of steel and electricity that’s more painful and fulfilling than Cartman has words to describe.

When all of this is over, Cartman will wonder whether he really should have let Chaos into his life with such reckless abandon. Whether a few moments’ ecstasy was worth breaking twenty-seven laws in order to bring Chaos home. And even though he will try to convince himself otherwise, he will know that the answer is  _ yes _ . He’s been waiting his entire life for this moment. 

With willpower that he didn’t know he had, Cartman withdraws his mouth from Chaos’s. Immediately, he feels a magnetic pulse between his body and Chaos’s that protests the separation. Panting, Cartman smirks, “Are you, fucking, using your, magnetic powers, on me, right now?”

“Why’d you stop?” Chaos pants in lieu of a direct answer. Because of course he is, he’s a sneaky villain with sneaky villainous ways. 

Cartman pulls Chaos towards him once again, but instead of going for the mouth he attacks Chaos’s ear instead. “Careful,” Cartman breathes, “you’re getting selfish again.” 

“S-s-s-s-suh-sorry—” Chaos gasps. 

“Remember,” Cartman warns, “you’ve had your turn. This is about  _ me _ now.”

“I’m sorry, Mister,” Chaos whines. “Y-y-y-you have, n-no idea how long I’ve wanted—it’s hard to control myself—”

The words manage to add even more fuel to the fire burning inside Cartman, and he bites down the shell of Chaos’s ear to distract himself. After all, he will never live it down if Chaos’s whiny voice is all it takes to get him to blow his load. “And here I thought Professor Chaos had  _ complete mastery  _ over his powers,” he growls. 

Never to be slighted in regard to his abilities, Chaos finally obliges and goes limp, collapsing weakly onto Cartman’s lap. Cartman’s feels the magnetic force field flickering into nonexistence, but the raw, metaphysical attraction between them doesn’t dwindle at all. 

“Good girl,” Cartman says haughtily, but Chaos seems to like it if his delighted squeak is anything to go by. “Don’t use your powers and I won’t have to use mine.” He allows his sharp raccoon teeth to graze over the shell of Chaos’s ear, revelling in the way Chaos’s body shivers against him. 

It would be unfair to call Chaos a  _ submissive _ sexual partner. Cartman learns that Chaos really likes excessive hair pulling and nail-digging, which is kind of painful but also a real fucking turn-on in an intoxicating way. Not to mention that little stunt with the electromagnetism. But he’s also so fucking malleable and responsive—like molten silver—and when Cartman demands something of him he actually  _ does _ it. It makes Cartman feel powerful and Cartman is starting to get drunk from all that power. Cartman has never wanted anyone so badly in his life. He feels like a virgin about to get together with his first love. 

Cartman’s actual first time had had nothing to do with love. It’d been with Kenny, of all people, and it hadn’t actually been so bad. They’d been in high school, and for all that Cartman liked to talk big, the reality of sexual relations had still been something of a mystery to him. Kenny, on the other hand, was wildly experienced to the point of incredulity. One day they’d been alone in Kenny’s house, because Stan and Kyle were off doing gaywad things together, and then it had sort of just...happened. As much as The Coon hated Mysterion, after all, Cartman and Kenny were still just bros who had, once upon a time, been Best-Friend-necklace-ordained BFF’s. They’d grown apart over the years, but their friendship still meant something to them. 

Being with Kenny had been, for lack of a better word, comfortable. It’d been easy and satisfying. It’d been like sitting on the toilet after a wonderful meal of Kentucky Fried Chicken skin, reading your favorite comic book and having a great, big, relaxing shit. Because that’s all Kenny would ever amount to in Cartman’s mind. Good shit, but still shit. 

Cartman can’t even begin to put into words what Chaos is to him. Truth be told, there’s still so much they don’t know about each other. But one thing for sure is that there’s nothing about being with Chaos that’s relaxing or easy. If anything, it feels  _ necessary _ . It’s like coming across a blazing fire in the middle of an Antarctic blizzard. The flames lick at your frostbitten fingers and it burns with a kind of soul-scorching agony, but you can’t help but want to get closer. If you don’t you’ll die.

Eventually, Cartman uses his superior strength to lift Chaos up and switch their positions so that Chaos is the one on the couch and Cartman is the one towering over him. Cartman takes a moment to gasp for much-needed to air, and in that moment a wave of tenderness overtakes his urgency. Chaos really isn’t so bad to look at, especially with his flaxen hair and delicate, almost feminine build—and the fact that he’s sitting underneath Cartman and that the two of them want  _ the exact same things _ is just too much. Cartman reaches out a meaty knuckle and gently runs it down the length of Chaos’s face. He’s consumed with a desire to put Chaos in a box and protect him forever because Chaos just looks so fucking  _ fragile _ , even though realistically, Cartman knows that Chaos is the last person to need protection from anything. 

Chaos’s eyelids flutter and he leans into Cartman’s touch. Cartman stifles a groan, because Chaos’s weird little mannerisms are making blood rush to a  _ certain area  _ of his body faster than the fucking Autobahn.

God fucking dammit, this is all really embarrassing to admit, but Cartman  _ really fucking likes  _ Chaos. 

Today is certainly a day of firsts for Cartman. It’s not his  _ first time _ , but it’s the first time he’s ever  _ wanted _ someone as badly as he wants Chaos, it’s the first time he’s ever  _ liked _ someone as much as he likes Chaos, and honest-to-goodness, it’s the first time he’s celebrated Christmas in any capacity at all since the year two-thousand-and-fuck. 

Then Chaos proceeds to ruin the perfectly sweet moment by fumbling with Cartman’s pants. Cartman is so distracted by Chaos’s face that he doesn’t even realize what’s happening until Chaos has successfully pried open his fly and runs the tips of warm fingers over Cartman’s length through the thin cloth of his boxers. The sensation is so electrifying that Cartman’s knees almost give way. 

“Goddamn—sneaky—villain—BITCH!” Cartman swears. He yanks Chaos’s fingers away from his crotch, because he will  _ not _ blow his load before his pants are even off! “I told you not to use your powers!”

“I didn’t,” Chaos says innocently, his eyes completely trained on Cartman’s thinly-clothed, hard penis with fascination. Cartman can’t decide whether Chaos is lying about using electricity, or if his touch is  _ just that good _ , but he ultimately decides that he wants to punish Chaos for it anyway. 

He throws Chaos’s hand off to the side and takes a step back. Chaos makes a disappointed noise, but Cartman tuts and shakes his head. “You’re such an eager little slut for me, aren’t you, Chaos? Can’t keep your hands to yourself, can you, whore?”

“I-I-I-I’m sorry, I’m j-just, j-j—” Chaos tries to say, but his words quickly fall into an abyss of incoherence. The villain looks so desperate that for a moment Cartman wonders whether he might cry. 

“You don’t get to touch me until I say so,” Cartman orders. “And since you’re such a slut, take off all your clothes and lie down.”

Chaos looks equal parts excited and terrified. He stands up and immediately begins to shrug off the pink bathrobe. After a moment, Cartman steps forward and helps him, because Chaos is obviously still in pain from his stitches and despite the sharpness of his words, Cartman doesn’t actually want Chaos to hurt. Not  _ now _ , at least. 

Eventually, Chaos stops even trying altogether allows Cartman to strip him. Cartman hesitates when Chaos is down to nothing but the towel, which looks painfully tented in the front. Chaos seems to sense Cartman’s internal strife. He looks Cartman straight in the eye, then takes Cartman’s hands and guides them to his own waist. 

With a deep breath, Cartman removes the towel and lets it fall to the floor. 

When Chaos had been unconscious, it’d seemed so scandalous to look at him naked. Now that Chaos is awake, Cartman can still feel some of that residual embarrassment, but the fact that Chaos doesn’t look embarrassed at all and seems completely confident in his own barrenness makes Cartman’s embarrassment only minimal. Part of Cartman feels awkward that he still has all his clothes on while Chaos is in nothing but a birthday suit, but most of Cartman is experiencing a full-on power trip from the situation. He dares to look down at Chaos and finds that the villain is just as well-endowed as he’d thought. Certainly more endowed than he remembers Kenny being. 

It almost manages to make Cartman feel a bit inadequate in that department. But Chaos is still looking at the area of his unzipped fly with such unbridled longing in his eyes that those feelings are easily quashed.

Cartman picks Chaos up bridal style, and the villain lets out a delighted giggle at being handled. Cartman rolls his eyes and lays Chaos down lengthwise on the couch. He winces slightly when he once again catches sight of the mess he made of Chaos’s stitches, and his libido is tempered slightly when a newfound trickle of guilt makes itself known. 

Chaos seems to read his mind. “It doesn’t hurt. Not that much,” the villain reassures soothingly. “I ain’t mad. And you said it, Coon, Chaos has been through m-much worse.”

Cartman nods, not trusting himself to vocalize anything about the issue. Then he allows his gaze to wander downwards once again. Chaos’s beautiful cock is standing upright, pink and glistening. Cartman remembers his resolve to punish Chaos, and suddenly he knows what he wants to do. 

“Lie still and don’t you dare fucking move,” Cartman says authoritatively, and Chaos complies, lying so still that it almost seems like he’s holding his breath. 

If, at any point before this moment, some told Cartman that he would be having  _ relations _ with Professor Chaos on his couch during the virgin hours of Christmas Day, he most likely would have flipped that person off and laughed in their face. And even if he  _ had _ believed the poor messenger, he would have assumed that  _ he _ would be the one with his monster cock flopping out, and that Chaos would be the one on his knees. 

But right now, all Cartman can think about is how much he wants to possess all of Chaos, in sight, smell, hearing, touch, and  _ taste _ . He wants to know if the essence of Chaos is as sweet as his cute blond face. 

He also wants to know how much of Chaos can fit inside his own mouth. 

“I’m going to suck your dick,” Cartman growls at Chaos, because Cartman is nothing if not straightforward. He runs one hand over Chaos’s scarred stomach and another over his thigh, leaving searing trails on the trembling flesh beneath his fingers. “I’m going to suck the  _ fuck _ out of your fucking dick, and it’s not going to be a bargaining chip for my life, it’s going to be because I’m gonna extract every last  _ drop _ of your debt to me out of your fucking cock, you got that?”

Chaos nods frantically.

“And that’s another thing, Chaos. You are going to lie  _ fucking still  _ while I do this, and you are not going to run your faggy little motormouth off unless it’s to scream my name like the cheap fucking whore you are, got it?”

Chaos looks like he wants to nod, but Cartman had just told him to lie still, so he uses his imploring eyes to communicate  _ yes _ as loudly as he can. 

“When we’re done, it’ll be up to me to decide if your debt has been repaid,” Cartman says, because if he’s honest to himself, there is  _ so _ much more than just sucking cock that he wants to do with Chaos. 

Chaos blinks his assent.

“And you are going to fucking enjoy every moment of it, Professor,” Cartman finishes, and this time he doesn’t give Chaos any time to respond before going down.

* * *

A week goes by, and still Cartman insists that Chaos’s debt has not been repaid. 

At least, Cartman  _ thinks _ it’s been a week—he hasn’t exactly been keeping track of the days. He’s turned his clocks around and pulled his curtains shut so that it’s impossible to tell whether it’s morning or night. He’d tossed his phone underneath his pillow, and hasn’t checked it since doing  _ it _ for the first time with Chaos. He’s sure there are a hundred missed calls from annoying Clyde by now, but Cartman decides that his half-brother can go fuck himself.

Cartman isn’t usually the type to bury his head in the sand and ignore reality like some gay-mo ostrich. He usually faces his problems head-on, bitches about them until people get tired enough of his bitching to help him solve his problem, or beats the shit out of the people causing the problem. 

But then again, Cartman isn’t usually the type who brings supervillains home and fucks the shit out of them, either. Besides, the blissful little fantasy life he’s built with Chaos has never made reality seem more sucky. 

With the passing days, Chaos slowly recovers from his injuries and regains his strength. Cartman can now grab Chaos’s pretty blond hair worrying about his concussion, and he can smush Chaos into the bed without reopening his stitches. And all of these things turn Chaos into a better, even feistier lover. Each of their encounters is an improvement of the last, which in turns leads Cartman to declaring that Chaos’s debt has not yet been repaid; after all, until the sex stops getting better, Cartman will always wonder about how next time is going to turn out. 

Sex, however, is not the only thing that Chaos is dynamite at. Chaos is so talented in the kitchen that had Cartman not sucked his ginormous penis with his own (still sore) mouth, Cartman would’ve been sure that Chaos was secretly a woman. Better yet, Chaos cooks without Cartman having to demand it of him; on Christmas morning, Chaos had presented a baffled Cartman with a plateful of scrumptious pancakes and explained that he thought “The Coon deserves better than instant ramen all the dang time”, and had gone on to prepare every meal there on after. Chaos’s steaks rival that of Liane Cartman’s, something Cartman hadn’t thought possible—but Chaos has a way of charring his meats in the most perfect way using his powers. Cartman never thought he’d see the day South Park’s premier supervillain used his murderous capabilities in such a domestic setting. 

Chaos is also a formidable opponent in video games, which the two of them have taken to playing whenever they’re not eating, sleeping, or having sex. The villain does, however, get a little distracted whenever blood and guts are shown on screen, which leaves him open to Cartman’s attacks. The fact that Cartman has slaughtered Chaos’s avatar 127 times somewhat mollifies him from the fact that he can’t overpower Chaos in a real fight. 

Cartman sometimes worries, though, that Chaos will call him out on his act. He may not have been keeping track of the time, but Cartman knows full well that Christmas has long past by now. And Christmas gifts do not involve keeping supervillains in your homes as live-in cooks and lovers for an indefinite amount of time. Cartman would have felt more at ease if had he something to hold over Chaos’s head, but at the present he has no blackmail material to truly stop Chaos from leaving. He  _ could _ take a picture of Chaos naked, he supposes, but he somehow doubts that Chaos would be too bothered by a naked photo. Besides, releasing such a photo would beg the question of what a naked Chaos was doing in his house. That is a question Cartman is not prepared to answer to the general public.

His next best bet is to figure out Chaos’s identity—but Chaos has remained impervious to Cartman’s cajoling, and the mystery remains no closer to being solved. 

Still, nothing about Chaos’s behavior seems to suggest that he’s not happy about living with Cartman—if anything, he’s a constant ball of sunshine and affection. The villain  _ does _ sometimes slip into small depressive episodes in regards to the hobo he accidentally murdered in the Christmas Tree Fire, having not quite gotten over the guilt of that incident yet, but Cartman is usually able to snap him out of his funk with a kiss.

Other than that, the two of them don’t talk about their respective superheroism or supervillainy. It’s a topic of conversation that would only bring dreaded reality back into their insulated little bubble of fight-free domesticity, and neither of them can bear to destroy the illusion just yet. 

Cartman should have known that it wouldn’t last, and that delaying would only cause the fallout to crash even more violently about their feet. 

* * *

It begins with Cartman being woken up by the familiar sound of Chaos screaming. It’s not the good kind of pleasure-induced screaming that Cartman’s gotten used to in the past few days. It’s the old kind of familiar, the kind of that he associates with blood and grit and death battles, and the righteous rage of Professor Chaos right before he murders Mysterion. But this time, that rage is directed at  _ Cartman _ . 

He barely has time to sit up before something hard hits him in the head. 

“OW!” he yelps, clutching his suddenly throbbing head. Out of the corner of his vision, he sees a cell phone bouncing off the cushion beside him, but his eyes are too blurry from pain and exhaustion to make out what’s written on its lit-up screen.

“YOU LIED TO ME!” Chaos screams.

Cartman doesn’t need clear vision to make out Chaos’s figure standing over him, and he can only imagine the expression on the villain’s face, if the anger in his voice is anything to go by. Cartman rubs at his head and blink a few more times to sharpen the image. Chaos looks so much taller and scarier than he really is, but that’s probably because Cartman is lying down. The villain is wearing nothing but one of Cartman’s T-shirts and too-large boxers, and despite the situation, Cartman can’t help admiring the view. In the past few days, he’s realized the pointlessness of hiding his attraction to Chaos, if only because Chaos is so overt about his attraction for  _ Cartman _ . 

And  _ goddamn, this bitch is sexy  _ is the first thing that comes to Cartman’s mind at the moment. 

Cartman slowly sits up and smirks up Chaos. He’s about to make a joke about how Chaos is a crazy sadist in AND out of bed, but then he notices the sparks flying out of Chaos’s clenched fists and realizes that this might not be the best time to joke. 

He silently evaluates the situation, wondering whether Chaos might be mad enough at the moment to fly off the actual handle and burn down the house with him in it. Sometimes, in the face of Chaos’s dorkiness it’s really easy to forget that the dude actually  _ is _ insane. 

Then his eyes slide to his right and land upon the phone that Chaos had thrown at his head. It’s his phone. 

The phone that Cartman had hidden under his pillow. 

The phone that probably has a hundred missed calls from Clyde. 

_ Shit _ !

Cartman immediately tries to make a grab for the phone, but Chaos uses his electromagnet-y powers to summon the phone to his hand in an instant. 

“Hey, give that back!” Cartman yells. “That’s private!”

“A couple people called Raven Puke, Po-Boy, Fishsticks, and Black Asshole wished you a Merry Christmas,” Chaos says flatly, somehow managing to make Cartman hilarious monikers for his stupid friends sound unfunny. But in that moment, Cartman similarly fails to find them funny: he can only feel ridiculously grateful that he hadn’t saved his contacts under their real names. It would’ve been all too easy for Chaos to figure out his identity if he knew even the first names of his closest acquaintances. “And you have ninety missed calls from someone called Cockroach.”

So Clyde hadn’t tried calling him one hundred times after all. Cartman supposes that’s an improvement for Clyde’s standards.

“You’re not supposed to be looking at that,” Cartman growls. “Why do you even have that? Were you snoopin around my stuff? Goddammit, that is MY private property!” He tries to make a grab for the phone, but Chaos uses the opportunity to stomp on Cartman’s stomach. Tears spring to Cartman’s eyes; he falls flat on his back completely winded. 

Enraged and a little hurt at Chaos’s callous treatment of him, Cartman whips out his claws and makes a swipe for Chaos’s ankles, but Chaos levitates out of the way, flying all the up way to the ceiling with his legs safely curled underneath his body, away from Cartman’s reach. Well, technically Cartman  _ could _ reach Chaos if he really wanted, raccoons are expert climbers after all, and the bookcase is  _ right there _ ...But then he decides to do his best with words first before resorting to such measures. After all, out of everyone in Coon & Friends it’s The Coon that’s always had the most success talking villains, including Chaos, down.

“Okay, so I got texted by some dickheads. All of whom I’ve ignored in favor of licking cum off  _ your _ literal dickhead, Chaos! How does that constitute me lying to you?”

“Because of this!” Chaos spits, too incensed to even blush or stammer about the cum and dicklicking. “From  _ Mom _ : ‘My dearest darlingest Poopsikins, I never meant for you to get mad at me. Please tell me what I can do to make you forgive me!’”

Cartman’s (still wounded) stomach does a flip in embarrassment and horror. “Oh...my god—“

“From  _ Mom _ ,” Chaos continues relentlessly, his voice crescendoing in anger, “‘Merry Christmas. It isn’t the same without you, my darling little Poopsikins, sweetheart. But I hope you’re having fun!’”

“Chaos—“

“‘Mommy misses you, Poopsikins!’” 

“Fucking stop it—“

“‘Mommy loves you Poopsikins!’ Heart emoji, heart emoji, heart  _ fuckin’ _ emoji—“

Chaos spits out the last words as though the heart emojis themselves have committed themselves have committed the deepest grievances upon his soul. Chaos throws the phone at Cartman’s head again, but Cartman manages to evade it this time. He winces as it clatters loudly to the floor.

“You lied to me!” Chaos cries out once more, his face crumpling in dismay. “You said you had no family!”

Oh, yes, Cartman remembers telling Chaos that in a show of solidarity for the villain when he’d lamented that even General Disarray had family with whom the second-in-command wanted to spend Christmas. Cartman remembers hating his own mother so very much in that moment. But now, having her texts read out loud to him by Professor Chaos of all fucking people is stirring up old sentiments of fondness and affection for his old lady. The hatred is gone, replaced by only a slight resentment and confusion.

“What, did you think I was actually asexually replicated from a fucking bean pod or something? Everyone has family. Even  _ you _ have family. That’s how sex fucking works, Chaos,” Cartman answers deflectively. “Sorry to ruin your gay little fantasy about being dropped from the sky. Although maybe you were dropped on your head—“

“Stop changin’ the fuckin’ subject, Coon!” Chaos screams. “This ain’t fuckin’ funny!”

“I never fucking said it was.”

“You  _ know _ what I mean,” Chaos accuses.

Cartman sighs, because of  _ course _ he knows what Chaos means—he’s not an idiot, after all. Jesus, why oh why did Chaos have to find his fucking phone? “All right, fine. I lied. You caught me. Congratu-fucking-lations. What, do you want a prize or something? Here!” Cartman gives Chaos a sarcastic round of applause, but this only serves to make the blond look even more wretched. “Honestly, why is this such a big deal to you? You’re a fucking villain, your kind  _ are _ liars by default!”

“Not me,” Chaos immediately denies. “I don’t like liars, and I don’t like bein’ one either.” Then he points an accusing finger at Cartman. “And you’re supposed to be a  _ hero _ ! Ain’t your kind not  _ supposed _ to do shit like tellin’ lies?”

“The only promises I’ve made in regard to being a hero is to protect the innocent to the best of my ability,” Cartman sneers. “Which I’ve obviously fucking failed, since  _ you’re _ still alive.  _ You’re _ the one who’s always blabbing about the hypocrisy of heroes, so why are you acting so fucking surprised?”

“I’m not acting,” Chaos retorts simply. “I just thought you were better than them.”

Cartman does not expect this to strike as deep a chord as it does. “Ay, I  _ am _ better!” he protests. “I’m better than all of those crying pussies combined—especially fucking  _ Mysterion _ !”

“But you lied to me too,” Chaos replies, and he’s looking at Cartman as though seeing him for the first time. Cartman  _ really _ does not like this look. “You know, Coon, I shared an awful lot about myself to you, but you never really told me much of anythin’ about yourself. Now I’m findin’ out one of the few things you  _ did _ tell me was a lie all along. How’s that supposed to make me feel?”

“Nothing,” Cartman snaps. “It’s not like I asked you to give me your sob story. I don’t fucking owe you anything, Chaos. And whether or not I have a fucking mom who loves me doesn’t change how good I am at making you scream like the little whore you are.”

To Cartman’s horror, this causes Chaos to begin crying. “Oh, fuck no. Not this again, don’t fucking cry…” he begins.

“You don’t get it, do you, Coon?” Chaos says, voice surprisingly steady despite the pitiful tear tracks staining his cheeks. “I liked bein’ with you ‘cause you feel a little less alone. Because I thought we were the same.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Cartman says forcefully. “You and I are nothing alike! I’m an awesome hero, you’re an evil villain! That’s all there is to it!”

A hint of a fire flickers in Chaos’s eyes. “That doesn’t even matter,” he insists. “Disarray’s a villain and he doesn’t get me like you do. I’m talkin’ about—“

“ _ No _ ,” Cartman says, because a part of him is still terrified when he thinks about the similarities between himself and South Park’s baddest criminal. It’s one thing for them to tumble around in bed together due to high sexual compatibility—it’s another thing entirely to think that it might be something  _ more _ . “Chaos, you need to get over this sick little illusion you’ve built up in your sick head that you and I have anything at fucking all to do with each other! There is  _ nothing _ ! Zip! Zilch! Nada!”

Cartman eagerly awaits whatever fantastic argument Chaos is prepared to throw back at him. One of the intoxicating parts about being with Chaos, after all, is the discourse. It never gets old.

But Chaos surprises Cartman by floating back down to the ground in a subdued manner. “I guess you’re right,” the villain says dejectedly. “I’m sorry I wasted your time, Coon.”

Then Chaos turns away and begins leaving the room.

Logically, Cartman should feel triumphant. He has, in all respects, won the argument, after all. And he’s succeeded at doing so without getting hit in the head once again, or getting shot with lightning.

But the victory feels empty, if Chaos’s back is all he gets in reward. Cartman concedes that maybe...maybe he’d only said such harsh things because he’d thought Chaos could take it. He’d been expecting some grand comeback, not Chaos bailing like a crying pussy. If he’d known this was the reaction he’d get...well…

“Oi, OI! Where the fuck do you think you’re going? You stay right where you are...unless you’re going to wipe the blood from your vagina. In that case go right the fuck ahead. But then come back!”

Chaos stops, but he doesn’t turn around. “And why would I come back, Coon?” he asks softly. “After all, you said it. We’re nothin’ alike at all.”

“Aw, come on, Chaos,” Cartman wheedles, uncomfortably aware that he’s heading back towards pathetic-Stan territory once again. “We don’t need to have anything in common to fuck like rabbits. We can still be the best sex buddies in the entire universe. Opposites attract, that’s what they say, right?”

When this fails to garner a reaction, Cartman tries for a different angle. “Jesus, dude, really? Who was the momma’s boy talking nonstop about all the things he used to do with his mommy and daddy?  _ Huh _ ? I bet you’d still suck on Momma’s tits if you had the chance, you little  _ pussy _ ! And who was the one who patiently listened to your sick little gay fantasies about your dead parents? Me, that’s fucking who! I didn’t blow a fucking gasket on you, did I? Or, or play the stupid silent game you have going on right now. So who’s the fucking hypocrite now, huh Chaos?”

“My parents ain’t dead,” Chaos says. Cartman is surprised, because he’d naturally assumed that Mr. and Mrs. Chaos must have perished for their son to still have so many fond memories of them—the latter in particular—and still claim to have no family. “But I don’t get—f-fuckin’—love texts with heart emojis from mine.” Again, it seems like the heart emojis have personally offended Chaos somehow. 

“What did they kick you out of the house for?” Cartman asks sardonically. “For being gay or being a murderer? Or for being schizophrenic?”

Chaos looks like he has the terrible urge to flip Cartman off. “All those things I told you about were just  _ memories _ , Coon! A-and d’you know what memories are? They’re not fuckin’ real! H-how do I know what really happened, and what’s bullcrap I made up! You should know, Coon—you’ve got a telepath on your team! Maybe none of  _ this _ is even real!”

Yet another unwelcome look into the disturbing contents of Chaos’s inner psyche. “Well at least your schizophrenic brain made up some good memories,” Cartman says before he can stop himself. 

This finally gets Chaos to spin around, and he’s nearly foaming at the mouth with fury when he does so. “NO _! Y-y-you don’t get to j-joke about this, Coon _ ! Not when you have no idea‚  _ no fuckin’ idea _ , what it was like. One lil’ grain of happiness does not make up for—f-for a whole fuckin’  _ desert _ of misery!” 

“Well look who’s the fucking poet now,” Cartman says. “Poets are super fucking gay, you know. In layman’s terms I guess you’re saying that you’re one of those abused types who wants revenge. You know, shooting up a school would have adequately gotten your message across. No need for all this hoity-toity supervillain drama.”

Chaos definitely does not appreciate Cartman’s dismissive interpretation of the apparent woes of his past. “Y-y-you’re s-s-s-so full of  _ shit _ , Coon,” Chaos says, trembling with mad passion. “Buh-but I guess I’m the f-fool for thinkin’  _ you _ of all people w-would understand. Y-you’re a hero. Just like  _ Mysterion _ . People love you.” Chaos says this like being loved is the highest crime on earth.

“Oh. So you’re jealous of my awesomeness.  _ Again _ .”

“I-I’m not jealous of anything. Why would I be? Your mommy  _ loooooves _ her ‘poopsikins’.” Chaos says this with a highly mocking tone. “Me? I don’t need Mom’s love to be the greatest supervillain ever.”

Chaos crosses his arms and does the good old-fashioned pout, complete with the shiny eyes and protruding bottom lip. He looks so hilariously emo at the moment that Cartman’s first instinct is to rip on him. But then Cartman’s heart decides to betray him with a combined surge of guilt and tenderness towards the little blond emo bitch. 

Cartman starts thinking about his own mother. Yes, Chaos is right: Liane Cartman does  _ looooove _ her little Eric, with the extra ooooo’s and all. And no matter how mad Cartman may be with her at any given moment, he’s never actually doubted her love for him, not even when she decided she wanted to play house with Clyde’s fucking dad. Her love for him is something that’s as certain as the sun rising in the east every morning, and Kenny’s poorness, and Stan’s patheticness, and Kyle’s greedy gold-hogging dirty Jewness. Sure, Christmas and its associated memories had temporarily clouded Cartman’s mind with hatred for Liane, but Christmas is over now, and as cheesy as it sounds, he’s made  _ new _ memories with Chaos that feature more prominently in his mind than past traumas when he thinks of the jolly old holiday. And Cartman has so many other non-Christmas related memories that feature Liane.  _ Good _ memories. 

Kinda like Chaos’s good memories of  _ his _ mother. Yet the same woman who had once taken Chaos out for ice cream and Christmas shopping is apparently still alive, yet no longer loves her son. And despite that, Chaos  _ is _ a pretty badass supervillain, if not a little weepy and totally faggy. 

Cartman thinks he’d rather Liane be dead than to not love him. He doesn’t know what he’d do if Liane didn’t love him anymore. Maybe if he would shoot up a school like a jealous emo bitch. Maybe he would kill Liane and be done with it. 

If he’s honest with himself, he kind of feels like killing Chaos’s old lady right fucking now. 

  
His feelings are so intense that he does the unthinkable. Cartman strides up to Chaos and puts his arms around him. Chaos stops his wrathful trembling and goes completely still.

They’ve had so much sex by now that Chaos’s warm body is a familiar presence against Cartman’s bare torso. But this goes beyond their customary touching. This is a new and exciting thing in their relationship that they’ve never tried before.

Cartman is giving Chaos an old-fashioned, honest-to-goodness, faggy-to-the-bone feel-good  _ hug _ . And he doesn’t even feel grossed out by it!

“You’re getting this all wrong, Chaos. Sure people love you.”

Chaos’s voice sounds suspiciously choked up when he answers. “If you’re talkin’ about General Disarray or my minions, it’s not the s-same—”

“Chaos, Chaos.  _ I  _ love you, man.”

It’s not the first time Cartman’s said those three life changing words to someone other than his mother. Cartman is a master manipulator, after all. “A pathological liar”, Kyle calls him. It’d been a fucking miracle how many people were willing to do crazy shit on Cartman’s behalf just because he’d told a little white lie and said he  _ loved _ them like he actually meant it.

But this time with Chaos, Cartman realizes that he actually  _ does _ mean it. And it’s this, rather than the fact that he’d said the three words in the first place, that terrifies him.

He quickly lets go of Chaos and shuffles a few awkward steps backward. The loss of Chaos’s warmth is keenly felt. “Don’t fucking overreact about it or anything,” Cartman prattles, even though Chaos hasn’t actually reacted at all. “It’s not like it’s  _ hard _ to fall in love with you—uh, I mean with people in general. Especially if they suck cock like a prostitute.” Cartman knows deep down, though, that his love for Chaos has nothing to do with his cocksucking abilities. Kenny had sucked his cock like a prostitute too, but Cartman doesn’t love  _ him _ . But Cartman will shoot himself in the dick before saying this out loud to Chaos. “It’s not like a promise or anything. Don’t think I’m about to get you a wedding ring or something. There’s so much I still hate about you, I’ll probably fall out of love with you in like, another few minutes. But just—you were just—you were being so sad and pathetic—like a kicked puppy! Who doesn’t love those?—and I just thought I kinda loved you. For now.”

Chaos still hasn’t moved since Cartman hugged him. The villain is standing military-rigid and staring down at the floor, but Cartman knows he’s listening because his blue eyes are so wide with shock they look like they’re about to fall out of his head and bounce off the carpet. 

An eternity goes by before Chaos moves again. Cartman waits with bated breath for the villain’s response to his declaration of love—because a small part of him wants his declaration to be returned. Expects it, even. He’s not blind to the adoring way Chaos has looked at him these past few days. 

But Cartman’s hopes are shattered. Chaos looks up at Cartman again and gives him a clinical smile. Cartman can see the guarded detachment in Chaos’s eyes before the Chaos even opens his mouth. “Thanks,” Chaos says evenly.

Then Chaos turns to leave. 

Cartman experiences five whole seconds of silent incredulity before he explodes. “ _ Thanks _ ?” he screeches. “I tell you that I—I tell you  _ that _ and the only fucking thing you have to say to me is  _ THANKS _ ?”

“Yes, Coon. Thank you. Really, I’m really goshdarned thankful to ya. Thanks for—remindin’ me, I guess, about the transience of love. It made me realize—I need to get out of here, b-before I fall in love with you too.”

“Oh, I don’t  _ believe _ this!” Cartman yells. Now  _ he’s _ the one with the urge to throw things at Chaos’s head, but pillows are the only items within reaching distance right now and it feels all kinds of childish and pathetic to throw what are essentially  _ feathersacks _ at Chaos’s head. “You don’t get to leave my goddamn house until _ I say so _ ! You still owe me, remember!”

Cartman is distantly aware that his indignant shrieking is making him sound like a mad harpy, which is especially dangerous because it evokes Wendy’s behavior. Even puking pussies like pathetic Stan are better than mad-harpy Wendy. But then again, Chaos had started it by chucking a phone at Cartman’s head—twice—and screaming  _ YOU LIED TO ME _ —also twice—and nothing screams bloody harpy vagina quite like that. 

Cartman wishes that Chaos would act like a mad harpy  _ now _ . Instead, Chaos says, with cruel, cutting bluntness, “Don’t be stupid, Coon. This was never about some stupid debt. This was the two of us playin’ pretend that we ain’t on opposite sides of the playin’ field. You’re a hero and I’m a villain. That’s the fuckin’ truth and it’s high time the both of us woke the fuck up.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way.”

“What the hell are you talkin’ about?’

Cartman swallows, scarcely able to believe that he’s about to do what he’s insisted to Mysterion countless times he’d never do. “You can join Coon & Friends,” Cartman blurts out. “You wanna be loved so bad, well—being a hero kind of gives you a free pass. Hell, maybe you’ll manage to beat Mysterion’s popularity once and for all. You’re blond too—and even twinkier than he is—hell, the girls will go crazy over your gay twink ass. Besides—” Cartman licks his lips anxiously—”I think you could make a good hero. Faggy to a fault but you don’t let anything get you down, do you? Except for that fucking hobo you killed. You’re still the only person who’s even cried about that, you know. That’s so good beyond hero-level at this point. That’s basically, like, Mormon-level good shit.”

Cartman’s hopes are teased when he sees a small crack in Chaos’s cold facade. But he’s let down again when Chaos mumbles, “I can’t.”

“Give me one good reason why not,” Cartman throws back petulantly.

Unfortunately, Chaos doesn’t have nearly as hard a time answering this question as Cartman did. “Because Chaos is my  _ responsibility _ . No, wait—it’s just not my responsibility, it’s just—it’s just fuckin’  _ mine _ , Chaos. I laid down every brick with sweat and tears—it’s  _ my _ kingdom now, and no one—not my minions, not Mysterion, and not you either, Coon—can take that away from me. You get it, don’tcha?” Chaos smiles sadly. “That’s the same reason why you won’t leave Coon & Friends for  _ me _ .”

Cartman wants so desperately to deny it, but every ounce of Chaos’s words is  _ right _ . Not wanting to become part of Chaos’s glorious kingdom has less to do with not wanting to be evil, and more to do with keeping his pride as The Coon. Cartman can’t even begin to consider leaving Coon & Friends until he’s regained the faith and admiration of his fellow heroes as their leader, and even then. Conversely, who knows what kind of shit Chaos feels he has to prove to his minions. 

Cartman finally feels the fight draining out of him. It never should have been this complicated in the first place. The only fight he should have been having was the one that involved trying to remove Chaos’s head. They’re The Coon and Professor Chaos, enemies till the end of time, and that’s all there is to it. 

Chaos uses the opportunity to quietly slip out of the room. Cartman has no energy to call him back—and the effort would’ve been futile, anyway. He slides to the floor and sits with his elbows on his knees in glum silence. 

Chaos comes back after a minute with his helmet tucked under his arm. He stands in the doorway awkwardly, and shuffles on his feet for several moments. 

“Could I borrow some clothes...Coon?” Chaos finally asks. The previous harshness in the villain’s voice is gone, replaced by his characteristic shy cautiousness. Not that that matters now, because Chaos is still _ fucking leaving _ . 

“Don’t fucking kid yourself, Chaos, you’re never coming back here,” Cartman snaps. “You’re just gonna take my shit and run like the fucking thief you are.” 

Chaos looks inexplicably sad at Cartman’s accusation, but he says nothing to defend him. Cartman sighs and gets up to find Chaos some clothes anyway.

He tosses the smallest pair of jeans he can find in Chaos’s general direction—along with a belt, because even Cartman’s smallest is still at least five sizes too large for Chaos. He cards through his long-sleeved shirts and jackets, and then his hands hesitate when they fall upon familiar red cloth. 

Cartman remembers being in his car with Chaos what feels like a million years ago on Christmas Eve, the villain bleeding out all over and somehow still chirpy about it, and how Cartman had lent him his jacket. And Cartman had had a brief little fantasy about Chaos wearing his signature red. 

Well, it’s not too late to realize that little fantasy, he supposes. It’s probably the last Chaos-related fantasy he’ll ever get to realize, because this is probably the last fucking time he’ll see Chaos in a casual setting like this one. 

Cartman would honestly prefer never having to see Chaos at fucking all ever again, but he knows he won’t have that luxury. Not while Chaos is South Park’s most prominent villain.

He tosses his beloved red jacket at Chaos. “I don’t want it back, anyway,” he says. “It’ll have your fag germs all over it.”

Chaos gingerly pulls on the red jacket, completely unaware of how emotionally significant this very act is for Cartman. 

Cartman expects Chaos to leave when he’s done dressing, but to his surprise, the villain pulls out a small towel he must have nicked from the bathroom and ties it over his own eyes. “What the fuck are you doing?” Cartman barks. “Don’t get started on your kinky shit  _ now _ ! We don’t have time for that if you don’t want to  _ accidentally _ fall in love.” Cartman can’t help saying that last bit with an uncharacteristic amount of bitterness.

“I’m not—th-that’s not what I’m doin’,” Chaos says timidly. “I was, uh, hopin’, that you could drive me to town an’ drop me off somewhere.”

“Why would I do that?” Cartman sniffs. “I’m done giving you free shit!”

“Because, if I walk out the front door myself, I’ll find out what your address is a-and if I know your address, I can figure out who you are,” Chaos explains. “If I beat you... _ when _ I beat you, Mister Coon, I don’t want it to be ‘cause I was a lousy cheater.”

Cartman doesn’t know why Chaos is so insistent upon being honorable  _ now _ of all times. But he can’t argue with the fact that it’d be in his own best interest if Chaos refrained from figuring out his identity, so he hastily pulls on a shirt and takes the blindfolded Chaos by the hand. 

The first thing that Cartman notices when he gets in his car is the time. It’s 11:45pm, apparently, but he still doesn’t know the date. He pulls out of his garage, expecting to find the streets empty and quiet as they are wont to be at this time of night. But there are rowdy pockets of people in front of almost every house and numerous cars all heading in the direction of downtown. 

Cartman doesn’t realize what’s going on until it’s too late. He’d planned to drop Chaos off in front of his old elementary school, but when he tries to continue on towards Avenue de los Mexicanos, a dozen cars honk at him because they all want to turn right onto Rusty Alley. By the force of the traffic, Cartman is hered into turning right as well. That’s when Cartman realizes that they’re all heading towards Sodosopa, where there’s supposed to be a big fireworks display on January 1.

It must be the last few minutes of the year.

Chaos, who is still blindfolded, jumps a little at the sound of the noisy car horns, but he doesn’t ask about them and Cartman doesn’t bother to reassure him about them, either. The crowds outside are getting noisier and noisier, but silence within the car seems to only get quieter and quieter. 

There are people with party hats and streamers and confetti and bottles of beer, and they all look so happy that it makes Cartman sick to his stomach. He realizes that he can’t do this for much longer. He doesn’t bother to start looking for a parking spot, because that’s nigh impossible at this point, what with what seems to be the entire population of Park County screaming their heads off in Sodosopa. So he pulls up in front of the sidewalk next to the new Hilton Hotel.

“We’re here,” he says tonelessly. “You can fuck off now.”

Shakily, Chaos nods and pulls his makeshift blindfold from around his eyes. He fidgets for a second before putting it down on the console. 

Cartman wonders whether Chaos’s goodbye will be snarky, shy, sad, happy, aloof, angry, or some demented combination of all of the above. But Chaos is studiously avoiding Cartman’s gaze—like he’s too much of a fucking coward to even just look the hero in the fucking eyes—and when he starts opening the car door, Cartman realizes that Chaos didn’t plan on saying goodbye at fucking all. 

Well, well! It’s not like Cartman planned to do a dumb thing like say goodbye, either! But he  _ will _ do this—

He reaches out and grabs Chaos by the arm, then pulls the villain in so close that their noses touch. Chaos is still looking off to the side, unwilling to meet Cartman’s eyes, so Cartman grabs the blond by the chin and  _ forces _ him to look.

Then he leans in kisses Chaos’s stupid mouth one last time. 

“Ten...nine...eight…”

The partygoers outside are going wild in tandem with the final countdown of the year. For one additional head-buried-in-sand moment, Cartman allows himself to believe that they are cheering for him, that he and Professor Chaos haven’t made irreversible decisions in their lives that will force them to end this kiss.

Cartman is the one who pulls away first, because he can’t allow himself to give that satisfaction to Chaos. Chaos is the one who’s leaving, after all; Cartman  _ needs _ this final victory, however small it may be. 

There’s nothing left to say. Cartman lets go of Chaos and faces forward in his street, staring intently out of the windshield with an immovable scowl. In the corner of his vision, he can feel Chaos’s lingering gaze. Maybe this is why Chaos had been so reluctant to look at him in the first place, because looking away is ten times harder. 

Chaos gently opens the car door and steps outside. Cartman waits until Chaos has fully climbed out and closed the door before he allows himself to look. There are so many people outside that Cartman only manages to catch a glimpse of the back of his red jacket and a golden blond head for about three seconds before Chaos is swallowed by the crowd. 

“Two...one...ZERO!”

Fireworks explode in the dark sky. Cartman can tell that they’re bright and blinding and absolutely spectacular, but they fail to ignite even a spark of interest inside him. 

He spends the first moments of his new year driving home. He doesn’t cry. He’s not a lame-ass faggot, after all.

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> AUTHOR'S NOTE CONTINUED: If you are still alive by the end of this abomination, CONGRATULATIONS! Now do this sad pathetic author a favor and read this author's note.
> 
> To pepsicola: Since it _is_ Valentine's Day, I might as well be as mushy and gushy as I can possibly be. I LOVE YOU TILL THE END OF TIME!!!!!....ahem. Yes. If there is such a thing as an AO3 soulmate, it would be you! I still consider myself new-ish to the South Park fandom, and believe it or not, Loving Him Was Red was my very first Cartters fic (Cartters fans, go read it people!!!!!). You have such a simple and beautiful way of writing (which I need to learn from, because I still haven't mastered the art of shutting the fuck up), and as much as I love the hints of Cartters in canon I think it was your fics that made me fall irrevocably in love with this ship for real. It may be hard to tell from my flowery, superfluous, extremely EXTRA style of writing, but all of the Cartters I've written thus far, both in GOATRS and this, take inspiration from your fics. You have no idea how happy it makes me that you enjoy the stuff I've written, and lately I've found that whenever I write Cartters I have you in mind! 
> 
> I'd again like to apologize for the heavy baggage that is your extremely late Christmas fic. I promise it wasn't originally meant to exceed 10,000 words. This just goes to show how much I suckity-sucky-suck at planning.
> 
> I think the next time I write a gift fic, I need to not associate it with any holiday, because it's just going to end up embarrassingly late-late-late.
> 
> GENERAL NOTES ABOUT THE FIC:
> 
> Yes, believe it or not, this is Part Numero UNO of a series. I almost focused on exploring Cartman's and Butters's characters in this fic, but the subsequent installations will go deeper into how this very messed-up AU verse works, as well as the other heroes and their relationships. There are a lot of hints in here about what might happen next, but you won't find out until I get off my ass and post the next parts. Just keep in mind that not everything is at it seems.
> 
> I tried my best to keep Butters and Cartman in character...if they were grown up...with actual powers...dealing with actual crimes...and I might have actually failed. IDK. This version of Butters is many respects much darker than his canon counterpart! But it has to be this way if he's to be taken seriously as a villain. Then again, canon Butters killed an entire cruise ship of people without batting an eye, so to each their own. The fact that South Park is such an irreverent show to begin with gave me more confidence to venture into the dark side. Dark!Butters really is my true love, though. 
> 
> P.S. It was a bit difficult to format all 46,000 words of this thing, so there might still be some typos here or there. I will be cleaning it up over the next day or two. If any of you catch my silly mistakes even after that, please rip me a new one in the comments.


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